


Under The Moon's Dark Iron

by Bekaylo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableist Language, Accidental Voyeurism, Altered State of Consciousness, Anal Sex, Animal OC - Freeform, Animal Transformation, Assault, Attempted Grinding, Canon-Typical Violence, Coffee, Comic Book Science, Comic book genetics/physics/biology, Dewclaws vs. Opposable Thumbs, Flashbacks, Grinding, HYDRA Husbands, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Slurs, Horror, Impaired Judgement, Intercrural Sex, Jack to the rescue, M/M, Major Illness, Manual Restraint, Masturbation, Metatarsal Relaxation Therapy, Mild Blood, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Nausea, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Outdoor Sex, Past Lives, Predestination, Puppy Play, Sexual Assault, Sick Animal, Sleepy Sex, Toe-sucking, Transformation, Unethical Medicine, Werewolf Reveal, change of POV, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 61,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bekaylo/pseuds/Bekaylo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brock Rumlow had been a promising choice for Dr. Woodhouse's program. In fact his application to participate in the ‘performance research advantageous to the legacy of Hydra deep science and the principles of Hydra’ had leaped out at the doctor from among many exciting candidates. The program was specifically one of performance enhancement and Commander Rumlow was always keen to perform.</p><p>'All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel. …Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.<br/>Margaret Atwood,</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> For Cody: Happy Birthday!
> 
> Many thanks to mollynoble for beta-ing and to sian22 for encouragement and a title!

_The boy paused at the top of the hill, breathless and flushed from running and his excitement. The evening was quiet and warm. A soft wind stroked through the hair on his head and brought the scent of cypresses to his twitching nostrils._

_The moon was rising, already clear of the trees in the forest below. A pale mezza luna with patterns like dark iron, as mysterious as they were familiar. It was beautiful, above the forest and the hills, and the boy flexed his toes in pleasant anticipation of the next few hours. Anticipation and Panic, awe of Pan and nature itself._

_Nights like this made him glad to be_ alive. _The wind brought a bleating sound from down in the valley; supper and home to bed. His life was, at that moment, perfect. He was young and strong with his whole future ahead of him._

\--------------------------

Dr Bamber Woodhouse glanced over the file on his desk one more time and came to the positive conclusion that, all things considered, the right choice was currently taking up a seat in front of him. Dr Woodhouse glanced finally and decisively at the files, service, personal and the latest medical records relating to his decision.

Now seated in front of him was one Brock Rumlow, commander of SHIELD STRIKE team Alpha, forty years old, impeccable service history, long time loyal Hydra agent Commander Rumlow had been a promising choice for the program. In fact his gushing application to participate in the ‘performance research advantageous to the legacy of Hydra deep science and the principles of Hydra’ had leaped out at the doctor from among many exciting candidates. The program was specifically one of performance enhancement and Commander Rumlow was always keen to perform.

Dr Woodhouse had gone through all of Rumlow's records with a critical eye several times.

 _‘Driven’_ said the reports from his first STRIKE captain. _‘striving to achieve great things’_. Rumlow was both healthy and physically fit, had excellent combat skills and dedicated himself to martial arts training as a pastime as much as a job requirement.

There were two noted episodes of clinically diagnosed PTSD, one from his Army service record, another from SHIELD. Such episodes were common and probably unavoidable in his line of work. They had not impacted too badly on his overall record; no more of an obstacle than the several bullet wounds, shrapnel injury from a Hydra-poking-the-ants’-nest mission in Sarajevo that had him laid up for four weeks, and the various ongoing ailments that came with age. Sore backs and hips were worn like a badge of honour. His performance despite the mental issues proved his resilience and dedication and the physical problems, well, the program would hopefully eradicate those.

_‘After an initial period of performance down curve and possible doubt - not, it has to be stressed, with the principles of Hydra, but with his own endurance, Rumlow has come on in leaps and bounds. Especially when training and working with (Jack Rollins).’ stated fragments from Commander Rumlow's Hydra training records. ‘He has exceeded expectations, especially in the past six months,’_

Jack Rollins, second-in-command on STRIKE team Alpha, was a significant feature in Rumlow’s career, right from their training days. Rollins had been someone Woodhouse hoped might also have volunteered for the program. Six feet four inches of hard muscle with no enhancement, formerly from a highly specialized section of the Navy. Explosives/demolitions expert, accomplished marksman - and rumour had it, in a 'highly specialized' relationship with Commander Rumlow. But that was rumour and irrelevant. They certainly had worked together seamlessly for a couple of decades and Agent Rollins seemed to enhance Commander Rumlow's performance. Dr Woodhouse really would have liked him to volunteer for the program, but it was known Rollins was stubbornly satisfied with being second on STRIKE team Alpha.

Rollins had not volunteered, but there were several impressive candidates besides Rumlow and no scope for drafting anyone into the program. It was a minor thought, nothing more than a bonus and Woodhouse knew he he was being greedy. It was almost churlish when he had Rumlow sitting opposite him, looking professional but very interested to hear if he was being considered. Whatever happened, Rumlow would also have the guaranteed support of his second, Rollins playing a passive role in that sense.

Rumlow was sitting patiently, his gaze fixed on a cluster of spider plants and succulents on top of Dr Woodhouse’s filing cabinet. This office was familiar to him, this was where he always came for routine medicals and his now twice yearly psyche evaluation. Above the cabinet hung several framed diplomas, reassurance of the doctor’s medical credentials and achievements. The plants caught his eye, the spider plant’s offshoots trailing gracefully down the side of the cabinet and creating a feeling of nature managed in capable hands.

The green made him recall his dream from last night… hills, trees, moon, running, exhilaration. He had dreams like that sometimes, especially before momentous, ground-breaking moments in his life. They were strange, but kind of reassuring.

His mind wandered back to training with Steve Rogers in the Triskelion gym. Steve's Fighting styles were old, barely trained. He had been through basic in the 1940s, enhanced with Dr Erskine's serum - and then thrust straight on to the front line with the SSR's propaganda tour as a chorus girl.

His subsequent combat experience and training-on-the-go with the Howling Commandos had given him a stronger grounding.

But Brock was SHIELD STRIKE Commander, Army trained in the late 80s, further brutal refinements provided by Hydra and constant up to the minute training was part of his everyday life. He prided himself on his thorough knowledge of several world class disciplines. He worked hard, pushed himself harder, he was always fresh, keen - and vicious.

That viciousness was another quality Steve lacked when sparring and training in the gym. Steve held back, Steve was an old fashioned gentleman, with Brock - and with anyone he wasn’t fighting with for real. All Brock had to offer against him was the element of surprise and a lack of sportsmanlike scruples. But Brock knew his up to date knowledge, his hard work, his dirty-fighting and his honest-to-god viciousness did not give him the advantage Steve had.

Steve could literally rip him limb from limb or crush his bones without breaking a sweat if he had not been an old fashioned gent. As easily as pulling the wings off a wasp.

Brock could not feel superior and smug about his wider superior knowledge and greater skill, nor underestimate Steve and his anachronistic boy-scout chivalry. Steve was a gent because he was bigger, stronger and faster than several hours a day in the gym, seven days a week could ever make Brock become.

Steve was enhanced, a super soldier, super human. Super hot, Brock’s treacherous brain kept telling him. A souped-up, 200lb version of Jack Rollins, with puppy-dog baby blues and the strength of ten.

(Nice tits, sweetheart.)

What would a guy like that be like on a date? Opening doors - he could rip them off their hinges - nice food, show him his sketchbook back at his place and make clunky, gentlemanly moves on him. Blushing and fumbling, all fingers and thumbs and - raw power.

Brock worked so hard and he could do with some of that power. Brock was destined for great things and unless he could get inside that pretty little head… Steve was destined to be a cautionary footnote at the base of history rewritten by Hydra. Brock was going to the future and he deserved some of that effortless strength. What couldn't he do with that?

“Commander Rumlow? ...Brock?” The doctor’s voice brought Brock back to the here and now.

Brock focussed his gaze on the doctor. A pleasant grin crossed his features, reassuring the man of his renewed full attention and amiable presence.

“I am pleased to say you are approved for the Program,” said Dr Woodhouse, closing Brock’s file and replacing it on his desk. He stood, smiling broadly and offered Brock his hand to shake.

“Great, thanks,” said Brock, with a genuine reciprocal smile of pleasure. Flashing healthy, white teeth - he certainly was a damn good specimen, and Woodhouse was pleased to have him, willing and ambitious and vain enough to want it as he was.

“If you don’t mind, we could start right away with a preliminary loading dose,” added the doctor.  
“Sure thing, doc, thanks,” Brock was delighted. This could be the start of something big.

\-----------------------------------

Brock sat on the edge of an examination table, wearing a hospital gown, open at the back. The skin over his lower back was still crawling uncomfortably from now dried, cold solution of antiseptic skin prep. A thin, gauze disposable sheet did little to ease the chill of the table surface under his bare ass. His feet hung down halfway from tabletop to floor, toes tingling and still curling a little from nervous memory of the strangest discomfort he had ever felt.

It made him feel like a child sitting in a grown up’s seat , adding to a feeling of exposure and vulnerability that being half naked in a gym had never made him feel.

He felt more like he had some twenty years ago, once in a motel room in Maryland and on several occasion in communal showers… Something was happening he had little control over right now and although it was something he had chosen this time, it was unsettling.

“Brock?” Dr Woodhouse’s voice, quiet and calming, roused him a little. He had just received a series of highly unpleasant, invasive injections of the ‘preliminary dose’ of the enhancement drug. He brushed the back of his hand under his nose and fidgeted nervously on the table. Dr Woodhouse’’s hand on his shoulder in a reassuring manner made him flinch.

“Alright there?” asked Dr Woodhouse in a voice that carried a hint of cheer.

Brock nodded, rousing enough not to seem like a complete dick. “Fine,” he muttered.

“We’re going to keep you in for a couple of hours,” Woodhouse informed him. “Fit and healthy as you are, it should be fine - but it’s a shock to the system. You’re going to lie down in a side room, now, for an hour or two. I’ll give you something to relax you, sleep is what you need now,”

Brock nodded again, shuffling off the table and following Dr Woodhouse and his guiding hand, now more lightly on his shoulder in a reassuring manner - ready to steady him if necessary, but letting him walk unaided.

Brock felt weird; the dose was making him feel cold and strangely feverish. Lightheaded and still unsettled. Sleep sounded like welcome option.

The venue for sleep was in fact clearly a medical/surgical recovery room, with one wall replaced with glass and a view of another medical lab area, several medical looking staff visible. A little cot and oxygen equipment - a defibrillator in the corner. There was a trolley with a drugs cabinet on the lower shelf. Brock wondered uneasily what calamities might be anticipated, but he sat on the bed meekly and accepted what the doctor explained were ‘sleeping tablets’ with a plastic cup of water.

He curled up on the cot in the medicinal smelling room and closed his eyes as Dr Woodhouse left. He had been in places like this before and it was clearly the best place to be under the circumstances. He was being monitored and sleep was fast becoming not only welcome, but irresistible.

\----------------------------------

_Under the mezza luna they gathered around the fire and gave thanks for the gifts of their lineage. They sang songs of hunting and war and the boy felt blessed. He could go running in the hills under the moon, with cypress on the breeze, mingled with the scent of sheep which meant sport and blood. In his blood was a gift and it made all things possible._

______________________

Brock woke up groggy but okay with a nurse giving him a glass of water. He had been asleep for two hours, the nurse told him. She offered him toast and tea after taking some obs and seeing he had kept the water down.

He showered, and the pink skin prep on his back washed away down the drain. It reminded him of blood and his dream, of wounds and violation. But he felt okay, dressed and in due time he was in the parking lot, waiting for an arranged ride home.

He called Jack on his cellphone, prepared to leave a message, but Jack answered just before the voicemail kicked in. He could not come over to Brock’s until late tonight; he was doing something with his motorcycle buddies.

Brock scuffed his foot on the pedestrian curb in the parking lot. He wanted to plead, but he had not told Jack what he was doing… He was being a dick, he was not actually ill and the medical people had discharged him.

“Okay, buddy…. Jack? Jack, can I go over to yours? - it’s quieter and I need to get my head down - no, it’s okay, I could just do with some rest.” Brock closed his eyes, aware of the whine in his own voice. “...You’ll be back later, right?”

“Okay, thanks…” the call ended on Jack’s end. The cab turned up and Brock got in, feeling stupid, but wishing he was going back to Jack’s to find him there. He felt weird - but relaxing and getting some more rest was probably all that was necessary. This was all his own choice, after all.

At Jack’s house in a Maryland suburb, he mooched around in a shirt and boxers, brewing coffee and preparing to watch some films. It was quieter out here than at his DC apartment and for once he had no urge to even put on music. He opened the refrigerator and the sweetest smell assailed him. Two steaks, on a plate, with red juices seeping out were the first things his eyes fell upon, following that aroma. There was a brief image of trees and grass and a tantalizing bleating sound. A mixture of revulsion at the sweet smell and thirsty longing to bite into it, juices and meat yielding under his tongue and palate - just like blowing Jack Rollins, but with more teeth involved....

Brock shook his head to clear it and instead he reached for cheese, pastrami and barbecue sauce for the sandwich he was planning. He should snack lightly after the procedure, they had advised.

He flopped on Jack’s big couch, the PVC sprawl-friendly one he had bought for Jack a few years ago. Covering his drawn up legs with a blanket he ate his sandwich, flipping through channels of TV without feeling engaged by any of them. He soon gave up and, having finished the snack, he nestled down and cocooned himself in the blanket. Dozing off, he dreamed of the hillside again.  
*******************************

_Under the moon, they gathered around the fire. They gave thanks for the gifts their linage gave them. They sang of war and hunting and the boy felt blessed that every night he could go running in the hills, under the moon. Smelling the cypress on the breeze, mingled with the scent of sheep, running for them, for sport and blood. Running in his veins, flowing in his blood, was the gift to do this, like his mothers and his fathers before him._

__________________

There was a roaring in Brock’s ears as he started to partially wake up. At first it seemed it was a waterfall in the hills he had dreamed of, half-moonlight shining on the spray and someone calling “Ianthinarus…”. A shadow darted in the still, deep water in the pool beneath the falls; the Lady was pleased to see the boy tonight. She only showed herself to those who were closer to the wild and nature…

Brock’s mind was in a state between waking and dreaming where the hills and the moon seemed as natural and real as the world he physically lived in. He did not identify the roaring as real and not a dream, or a neurological phenomenon, until his mind forced itself one fraction further towards waking. At that point the roaring changed to a rumbling, almost like a deep, resonant purring and Brock’s mind identified it as soothing and a signifier of something good. So reassuring that it let his mind switch back to drifting off towards sleep again, before he could consciously process that Jack Rollins had just arrived home on his motorcycle.

The next thing Brock knew was a smell of whiskey and leather and the warmth of a big body leaning over him and pressing on his chest.

“Hi…..awwww,” said a deep, soothing voice. Any immediate rational response to Jack Rollins’s greeting was lost at once. It was smothered and subdued by whiskey fumed breath and a tongue pushing past his teeth. Simultaneously, a big hand was down his boxers, seeking and stroking with gun calloused fingers and that changed what might have been a greeting into a stifled whimper.

Jack pulled away from the kiss to say “Whoah, you need a wax, baby,” the heel of his hand brushing over prickly stubble on Brock’s groin.

“But I had one -” yesterday, Brock meant to say - He couldn’t add that with the possibility of a medical exam or procedure today there had been no way he was turning up to see Dr Woodhouse all stubbled and messy - and he didn’t get to finish anyway as the sloppy, sappy kissing resumed along with the tugging handjob.

Brock went with it, revelling in the feeling and the warmth of Jack. Jack’s heating went off at midnight on a timer, which was why Brock felt cold wherever he was not swamped in Jack right now. Why he leaned into the rub of the leather jacket which carried Jack’s body heat. Why the cold metal of the zip on the jacket skimming intermittently over his bare hip made his breath hitch and made him squeal. That made Jack chuckle affectionately.

Jack was in one of those moods, sappy and demonstrative, which separation from Brock or the good natured chill of an enjoyable day triggered. Judging by the whiskey smell, he was also mellowed with booze - which took a lot with Jack. He must have been boozing with his biker pals all afternoon and evening.

Abruptly, Jack’s hand left Brock’s crotch and he opened his eyes fully, in surprise. He had few inhibitions around Jack these days and none right now. He whined in disappointment.

There was another soft chuckle in response and some rustling as Jack shuffled down his leathers and underwear, moving fully against Brock again, crowding him sideways and forward against the back of the sofa. There was cold air on Brock’s ass when Jack began tugging his shorts down, too. That was instantly replaced with the warmth of his lower body up against Brock - intense heat focussed between his legs as Jack began inserting his cock up under his balls and between his thighs. Brock sighed contentedly as Jack resumed the stroking and tugging of his dick in time to the thrusts of his rutting between Brock's legs.

Brock braced his ass helpfully against Jack's lower belly, where he could feel the soft, tawny hairs he so often nuzzled and buried his face in.

Brock came first with a sobbing sigh. It was just what he needed after the events of today. He lay panting while Jack reached his own climax, affectionate drivel spilling from his mouth along with a warmer spillage to mingle with Brock’s own sticky wetness further down.

Brock drifted a little while Jack muttered and nibbled his shoulder contentedly, hips twitching against Brock in aftershocks. ‘Slow burn’ was what Brock called it, gentle spasms and dissipation of the effects of coming. His own heart slowed, he was tingling all over. He imagined briefly what ever it was Dr Woodhouse had given him this afternoon caught in the current of his bloodstream, just having been on a racing white water ride, now gently drifting on to be metabolized. It was restful and Jack was warm and squirming behind him. Brock was content.

___________________________

Jack inhaled deeply and released his pleasure and contentment in a long sigh. He lay spooning Brock for a minute, leaning over to brush his lips over the perfect curve of a flushed cheekbone. Brock was generally warm, as might be expected right now, but already there was a chill in his limbs. Jack was intoxicated to a cruising level, as an afternoon and evening with his biker friends usually made him. He was alert however, and as much as coming home to a sleepy Brock waiting up for him made him sentimental, he was still noticing details, assessing things.

He assessed that Brock might be coming down with some virus or something, judging by the cold extremities and his lethargy.

Little illnesses usually brought Brock to a wallowing standstill, as did time off work generally. It would explain the increasingly peevish tone of the phone call earlier. The more Jack had thought about it the more he had realized how put out Brock had sounded after hearing Jack was staying out late. Jack had felt a little guilty as the evening wore on and had he known - had the little fucker just said something - he might have come back earlier.

Not guilty enough to cancel his plans altogether. His always carefully scheduled plans, enshrined in neat pencil in his ‘social’ diary, were almost immutable save for near death or Hydra orders.

But Jack let himself enjoy this closeness now and the contented little sounds Brock was making as he drifted back off to sleep. But now there were things to do.

It was a testament to their closeness and how Brock was something Jack felt so attached to that the fastidious STRIKE second could have remained like this and joined Brock in sleep. He had been with Brock long enough and was fond enough of him that the prospect of waking up tomorrow to the mess they had just made was not abhorrent.

Waking up to the smells of sweat, sex, Brock’s stale body spray and hair gel, and the residue of dried cum and saliva were a familiar part of being so close to him. Those things came as a package, along with snuggling and shared body warmth. They did not bother Jack in the way other kinds of Brock-generated mess in his home still did.

It was just a part of Jack would not let him relax without doing the responsible thing, He must move, must clean himself up and fetch a washcloth and towel for Brock.

When he moved away, Brock stirred again and whined, and pawed at him.

He was clearly slightly unwell and cleaning him up would be a caring thing to do. Jack arranged the blanket to replace his presence and headed for the bathroom. He was feeling very sentimental. Brock was amusing and endearing at times like this.

It was almost like having a pet or something, a dog perhaps, like the one he had had as a kid. Jack knew he would not have things any other way.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This second chapter is an exercise in breadcrumb trail laying. After this the flashbacks and strange behaviour will all make sense, I promise!
> 
> Thanks to Mollynoble for some tweaks and tips!

 

_Behind the eastern hill, the trees spread for miles in those days. As far as the eye could see, from the top of the hill, was a vista of green. For most it was considered a place of lush safety and shelter, but already the spread of huts and fences around bleating woolly supper went with a change in some people who lived down in the valley. Preferring their hand crafted shelters, they began to fear the woods irrationally as a place of chaos and mystery._

_The boy was gifted with the ways of the woods and the stone shelters, in his blood was the gift to live with a foot in both worlds. He had no fear of the trees and the river that ran to the waterfall. The supper ran free without fences, taller and more graceful than the bleating ones, some with what looked like tree branches growing out of their heads. One day he might be big enough and fast enough to catch one. The water and the breeze in the leaves called to him and sometimes he fancied he heard music._

Brock woke up to the sound of Jack’s clock-radio playing a song Brock remembered from his own teens, though it had more significance now from being associated with Jack. That was probably why it roused him, making him think of trees and nuzzling tawny, fuzzy (he guessed pubic) hair by a river. Brock took a few moments to realize he was in Jack’s bed, on his usual side, brushed Egyptian cotton sheets caressing his bare legs. There was a definite prickling sensation further up, as the soft fibers brushed what felt like stubble.

He lifted the blanket and Jack entered the room with a mug to see Brock peering down at himself.

“Morning,” said Jack, brightly, putting the mug on a locker. Brock dropped the blanket to stare sleepily but with extreme interest at Jack, who was wearing his STRIKE uniform and black socks. Brock thought briefly of the big black boots waiting in the hall, standing patiently to attention for Jack - and realized that meant Jack was off to work.

“What you doing today?” Asked Brock.

“Standing in for you at the team meeting and then training,” explained Jack, leaning over and putting the back of his hand on Brock’s forehead. “You don’t feel too flushed, are you feeling better?”

“Um, I-” Brock didn’t remember being ill - and then the memory of what he had done yesterday hit him.

Jack sat on the edge of the bed. “You were kind of feverish last night, didn't wake when I put you to bed,”

Brock swallowed and breathed slowly out of his nose at the idea that Jack had put him to bed - carried him upstairs and put him in this bed - he remembered being on the sofa when Jack came in, mellow and in leathers.

“You took a week off, I didn’t realize you were sick,” continued Jack. “I might have -”

“I wasn’t sick,” Brock interrupted, “Or at least not really, I had a medical, yesterday, with Dr Woodhouse - I’m fine, I had a booster, a vaccine thing, for that goose virus - maybe that made me feverish, I dunno, I was sleepy before you came back,”

“Alright,” said Jack. “That’d explain it…” he looked at Brock thoughtfully. “You get some more rest and I’ll phone you at 11.00 - I get a break then.” He gestured to the far side locker, on which his own phone lay next to Brock’s.

Brock reached up and grabbed it for Jack, a message appeared right at that moment and Brock looked at it, not being intrusive, but just instinctively looking at the alert. It was from ‘Dan’ and it said ‘Thanks, Rolo! U were right about the lube,’

“What the fuck?” Exclaimed Brock, automatically.

Jack took the phone away and laughed. “Dan. Dan? You know Dan, I’ve known him for years,”

“Yeah I know Dan.” Brock knew Dan only too well and it didn’t help at all. “What was that - about lube?”

“Chain lube.” Jack put the phone in his back pocket as he stood up.

Chain lube was the stuff Jack had used a couple of times when he was trying to be all romantic. Brock’s forehead started to crease in a small frown.

Jack chuckled. “For motorcycles, you idiot.”

He ruffled Brock’s hair. “Get up when I call you and you can get something for supper - you get it I’ll cook it, here, drink your coffee,” Jack handed Brock the mug as Brock shuffled more into a sitting position. He winced, aware of a stinging in his lower back. Like a reaction to whatever Woodhouse had given him yesterday, The effects were rather like a vaccination, it seemed. Something going on, reactions and processes Brock had only the vaguest understanding of - and this was in truth experimental, no-one’s understanding was complete.

He took his coffee and gulped some.

“You okay?” Asked Jack, gently.

“Okay….” Brock handed him the three quarters finished mug and wriggled back down, pulling the cover up to his chin, a few hours’ extra sleep seemed welcome. Especially if Jack was going to be out for most of the day.

Jack left and Brock listened to the sounds of the door closing, the car starting and leaving. The cotton sheets were soft and inviting. Brock’s hand drifted down to his cock, which was erect enough to warrant attention. A few languid strokes and a soft sigh later, the heel of his hand passed over that prickly stubble and he paused. The ghost of a frown on his face and a little spike of stress clouded this pleasant interlude. He remembered Jack commenting on the stubble last night and his own brief surprise. He had waxed the evening before seeing Dr Woodhouse. Brock was olive-skinned and prone to three o’clock shadow, facially. He waxed everywhere regularly.

Jack had never complained about Brock getting hairy in between these waxings. No, sometimes Brock wondered if Jack would even care if Bock stopped doing it. It had been someone he was with before Jack who called him a ‘messy little slut’.

_Fuck, don’t you even care anymore you dirty little fag, so disappointing -_

It had been his first STRIKE captain who had chuckled about stubble once and had to spend half an hour reassuring Brock it was cute and he wasn’t complaining, that it was not something a decent person would call disgusting. But by that time Brock had it indelibly fixed in his mind waxing was a form of social hygiene.

Jack spent so much time acting like he was hypnotized by Brock’s smooth olive skin that it confirmed the idea it was the ideal way to be. Brock did not object to Jack doing nothing more than trim his pubic hair now and again - but Jack had soft tawny pubes and did not resemble the fucking wolf man or something, which was how Brock saw himself unwaxed.

Brock himself had waxed diligently for years, and Jack was merely making an observation last night. But not being smooth was a problem to Brock, he had standards for fuck’s sake - and he had waxed before the procedure. It was disconcerting that he was so stubbly. Perhaps it was a sign of ageing, he really hoped the performance drug would help with that.

Brock looked at the ceiling and sighed. The sound of a kid skateboarding in the normally quiet suburban street made him turn his head and see the green of trees in the window. Like his dreams of forest, it was soothing, and his hand on his cock was still nice and warm. He resumed his stroking, soft and comforting.

Turning on his side where he could bury his face in Jack’s pillow, he jerked off slowly, self-soothing as well as working off his morning wood. The thumb of his other hand strayed to his mouth - something that happened just occasionally - and he nibbled the gun callous at the thumb tip. Whimpering contentedly into the pillow as he came, he lay tingling for a while, thought about needing to change the sheets later… or maybe just leaving them to push Jack’s buttons. If Jack was doing training today he would probably be in disciplinary mode later… Brock sighed and welcomed the approach of a long morning nap, a further catch up on sleep...and in no time he was dreaming of soft, tawny hair once more…

 

Brock woke up at 11am to his phone. Like anyone used to alarms and getting up at appointed times, he was alert enough at once to grab the phone and answer to Jack’s wake up call. Jack sounded friendly, reminding him this was his wake up call, time to get up and get something to cook for supper. Brock mumbled an affirmative and a thank you.

Almost as soon as he had put the phone down he felt the start of what he recognized himself as one of his grouchy moods. He had slept well, slept extra, but the mood just started right there and then. Jack’s kind, friendly tone could sometimes seem patronizing. Brock also kind of disliked the notion that he was to buy something for Jack to cook. He was not a 1950s housewife or some kind of help, after all.

He looked at the trees from the bedroom window and made himself wake up a little more, however. He had dreamed again, about the trees and music. He had been dreaming that stuff a lot in the past two days. Somehow that irritated him too. It was weird.

He stretched and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. In the shower, he wetted a washcloth and added a generous squelch of Axe ‘ _Apollo_ ’ shower gel, which Jack actually seemed to like sniffing on him - and had at least never passed any smart remarks about needing chemical warfare training to tolerate it. Soaping himself, he glanced down at the wet, bubbly foam on his body and was dismayed to see his snail trail emphasized in short, black stubble. He rinsed in growing unease, reached for a razor and shaving gel and the tangible resistance of the the hairs against the blades unsettled him.

This was a form of body horror, to someone who so prided themselves on their appearance. He never let himself get like this and it was less than thirty-six hours since he was professionally waxed. The hair was tough - his body hair was coarser than Jack’s in general, as far as Brock ‘s memory served, but this was strange. He had an uneasy feeling it was possibly some mid-life ‘male menopause’ thing.

Something that went hand in hand with grey hairs at the front of his head and in his facial stubble. He stood looking at the cut pieces of stubble sitting in shaving foam on his lower belly for a moment and sighed.

Sitting on the toilet lid, he took a magnifying bathroom mirror to check his eyebrows. He plucked and trimmed those, not in a thin line like a girl, but he took away stray ones and left his eyebrows as a neat but natural looking frame for his eyes. He had standards, after all. The plucking seemed to sting and smart more than normal, three strands of dark hair above the bridge of his nose were particularly stubborn. When he had done, he glanced at his legs, and decided to block what he saw from his mind. There was no time limit today in the way there would have been on a work day, but he was now no mood to try and shave or epilate both legs from ankle to groin. He stood up and went to get dressed.

There was coffee to heat up, left over from earlier, and Brock considered but decided against toast. Somehow he felt it was too soon after waking to eat, today. Like he was only partly awake. He had left his car at work yesterday and got a cab home and there was a note in the hall from Jack, saying cab money was in a basket where they left keys.

Brock felt a slight irritation that Jack, being thoughtful, had left such a note and cab money when he, Brock, had not given a single thought as to how he would get to the stores. It was half an hours’ walk to the nearest one, it would not have killed Brock to walk, he had time. Jack clearly thought he would prefer a cab, have no cash, wasn't feeling good yesterday.

Exactly one of the reasons being around Jack was good, was that he thought of everything, he filled in the gaps when Brock was not at his best and he thought about facilitating Brock period. Very occasionally, however, Brock resented it, for no good reason. He resented it now, he thought of Jack being out late yesterday and in fact never cancelling his plans for Brock, that text from Dan to ‘Rolo’ about fucking Chain Lube and Jack mentioning his groin-stubble last night - fuck!

 _Just fuck it all. He would walk, not take a cab like he was an ageing fucking cripple old man’s body hair retarded_ … there in the basket next to the cab money were Jack’s bike keys. Jack took his car to work mostly, as he had today. Brock would take Jack’s bike - that would clear his head and show - show Jack? Show he was not a helpless dick? Wake himself up?- that would be kind of fun, like a treat.

\------------------------

Brock was heading down the highway towards the small strip mall which comprised of several retail chain outlets, a store and a fast food joint. The roadside sign for an off road bar caught his attention. It was the bar Jack went to with his biker friends. Set back in the trees, with a parking lot to the front, it was familiar to Brock. Jack had taken him there several times in the past, just as part of the give and take they had agreed upon while on vacation over ten years ago.

Brock would do things Jack liked, go places Jack went, just sometimes, be known to Jack’s friends. Jack would do things Brock preferred, like go to clubs and urban bars or restaurants. Jack still did those things in fact, more than Brock did Jack’s things. Jack’s friends were only interested in motorbikes, Brock having a passing interest fostered more by absorbing Jack's enthusiasm for these two-wheeled vehicles. Brock liked riding on them, but was not fascinated by them as a concept.

Brock was slowing the bike and indicating the turn into the bar’s parking lot before he realized he had made the decision to check out the bar. The sign had made him think of the text from Dan, which had prickled at the back of his mind like his mysterious stubble. It would do no harm to check in and see if he could reassure himself that Dan and Jack were not - that Dan was just Jack’s friend.

He parked the bike and chained it responsibly, Jack could trust him with it. Walking into the bar, he noticed the pause in activity and ripple of attention he remembered causing on the several occasions he had been here with Jack. Dressed in dark chinos, with one of Jack’s jackets (which was a little too generously fitting and long in the sleeves) he thought vaguely he should fit right in, but of course he didn’t. With his pristine cockatoo hair and his Army boots, the biker jacket looked like a costume, not an organic part of everyday wear. He looked like an ageing twink with a biker chic aesthetic and deep down he knew it.

Several of the patrons, most of whom knew Jack and recognized the jacket, returned to whatever they were doing. A few more remained looking at him in some kind of interest. At the bar he spotted Dan. A little older than Brock, a little overweight, with a bandana and a thinning ponytail that reached his waist.

“Hi,” said Brock, approaching with a disarming smile. “Dan, right?”

Dan gave a genuinely friendly smile, “Brock.” He gestured to the stool next to him. “Drink?”

Brock nodded and sat.

“That’s Jack’s,” observed Dan, looking over the jacket. “Cute,” he indicated Brock with his head and hand, prompting a bartender to start getting a measure of something. Brock had not stated what exactly he had wanted to drink, but he didn’t care. Dan was sitting there, ensconced, it was half past one on the afternoon and Dan was in here, drinking. It was a bit pitiful to be honest.

“How are you keeping these days?” Asked Brock, pleasantly. “Sorry, I can't remember what it was you did -?”

“Mechanic. Here and there, whatever,” Dan smiled, “You still a hotshot secret service Commander? Jack says you lead the team you guys are on.”

Brock blinked in surprise at the amount of detail the man had been given by the usually scrupulously careful Jack. The amount of shit Jack had given him over the years - admittedly for going to bars and picking up strangers in his STRIKE uniform and his cross-harness like a ‘theme bondage costume’.

“Says you’re doing well, real proud of you,” Dan was saying.

Brock swallowed and there was a surge of pride. “He is? He said that…?” Brock’s eyes sparkled and his felt his face dissolve into a silly, sappy grin for a second. He turned his attention to the glass the bartender had placed in front of him, it was whiskey, and he could smell it was the whiskey Jack drank.

Dan chuckled.

Vaguely irritated at the chuckle and the fact he had been given Jack’s whiskey brand - like he was an appendage of Jack’s, for fuck’s sake - Brock picked up the glass and sniffed at the brown spirit. It smelled like Jack, of course, the same smell that lingered on Jack quite often. It was not a favored drink of Brock’s, in fact Brock did not normally have alcohol this early on in the day these days, it had sugar after all.

But he took a sip. It was okay, not great. Bitter, and he seemed very aware of the alcohol, like paint stripper.

Brock thought again that Dan was a bit of a loser, sitting here drinking in the afternoon, his body gone to seed and wearing the trappings of a sub-culture that seemed stuck in the past. Like Dan was still an 80s biker at heart, his life on hold and his body aged in the clothes of his youth. Brock thought of Jack and his mullet remnant hairstyle, despite regulations and the passing of time Jack clung to that hairstyle, but at least Jack had done something with his life. STRIKE team second and former Navy SEAL - Jack could have been a lot more had he not remained as Brock’s second on STRIKE Team Alpha.

And didn’t Brock know it, didn’t Brock know Jack was stubbornly there, micromanaging his every move. When he wasn’t making regular ‘dates’ with guys like this to meet up and drink and talk about motorbikes and the trips they made in 1990-whatever. Guys like this who sent texts about fucking Chain Lube - Brock was sure at least half of this gang or chapter or whatever they called themselves were gay. If Jack wanted anything to do with this guy when he had Brock and had had Brock exclusively for ten years then there was something very wrong.

_Why have burger when there was steak at home? There was steak in the fridge and it smelled good, god it smelled good again this morning when he got some milk for his coffee…._

He knew for a fact Dan was gay. He had made a pass at Brock once, drunk. Brock had not told Jack about it because he was younger and knew he had that effect on guys. The way Dan kept looking at him now reminded him of that.

Dan had just confirmed Jack talked about Brock, said he was proud of him. Brock felt smug about that, at least. He was in better shape and he had done something with his life. Dan was staring at him.

_Look at you, what you looking at? I’m steak and you’re hamburger._

There was music playing in the bar, the kind of thing Jack randomly found on the car radio and insisted on hearing through to the end when he did. It reminded Brock of the music he had heard in his dream, though that was nothing like this. The dream music was soft and single notes played on something that sounded like the wind in the reeds. The music in the bar was guitar-lead, with a driving beat - somehow both kinds embodied passion and the rhythm of life, life to the beat of a heart… sexual attraction towards a warm, male body. A man but not quite a man, part something he wanted to hunt, part man, all beautiful…

Brock felt good. Brock felt strong and his heart beat faster, driving adrenaline through him with the urge to hunt and - and fuck?

_This has not happened for years. Jack is not cheating with loser Dan. But Jack can be possessive and domineering. Brock is a powerful creature and not to be tamed. Dan is like a sheep, now bleating about how cute Brock is and how he always liked him. It’s wrong but Brock needed to put hands on him. He has an urge to claim prey and...consume it._

_Jack leaves him alone to socialize with these sheep._

 

“Come on,” said Brock, standing up and tapping Dan;s shoulder. “Come with me.” Dan blinked at him stupidly.

Brock gave a predatory grin and leaned in to whisper in Dan’s ear. “Toilet. You know you wanna…”

“What about Jack?” Asked Dan, rising nonetheless.

“Jack ain’t here,” murmured Brock, tugging Dan’s shirt lightly. He was dragging a willing victim, drawing his prey along to his lair - _The shitter, where else? Classy, real classy, Brock_.

The toilet cubicle was adorned with graffiti, small enough to brace and grind. Dan was all over him at once, muttering how beautiful he was. Brock could smell the man's leathers and sweat. He was nuzzling his neck, nipping at the skin there between his teeth and he wanted to go deeper. He wanted to fuck this man, the way he used to like guys to fuck him in places like this.

Dan whined and asked if Brock was going to blow him anytime soon.

That made Brock angry. Not what he was thinking at all. He was not a little faggot twink who blows guys anymore. _He is a creature of passion. He wants to attack, to rip - this is not years ago when certain guys used him and demanded blow jobs. Brock wants to own, and possess and take and consume._

He tore at the man’s clothes, rough and strong, using pins and holds from his training. Taking a firmer bite into the soft meat of the man’s shoulder, there was blood in his mouth and his nails raked the man's skin.

“Oh.. hey OW!!”

Dan’s voice sounded particularly annoying and whiny. Brock had Dan’s pants down. Dan’s ass was pudgy. That and the realisation he could hear Dan sobbing and protesting made Brock pause.His heart was beating fast, the taste of whiskey and blood seemed to be creating a haze where time slowed down and all that existed was a need to subdue this decaying, flabby creature and - and what else? Fuck him and use him and - and he had a vague association with the smell of the steak in the fridge at Jack’s house and the smell of the blood he had drawn from Dan's shoulder.

_This is fucking disgusting and Dan is a middle aged pudgy ageing motorcycle nerd, not like Jack and there is blood.. Even as his senses return Brock knows that he must not stay with the smell of blood. It makes him want to do terrible things with his mouth._

“What the hell, man?” Dan was screeching at him and it cut through the weird haze to rational thought. “What the fuck - stop!”

Brock pulled away from Dan, fumbling at the lock on the door, pulling his pants up. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Oh fuck…” Fear was the reason his heart was pounding now, panic ( _Panic?_ ) but he was used to working through the rush of fear. The cycle of fear and adrenaline kicked in and he was out of the bathroom window in seconds. He ran, across the backyard of the bar, scramble over the fence and fled into the trees.

____________________

Brock ran through the trees, blindly stumbling. His heart was racing with more than the effort of the run over uneven ground. Adrenaline coursed through him but it was not so much not enough as too much. Everything was too much, more adrenaline than his body could use, stronger urges than he could contain. It all filtered into a blind, stumbling run, running away from the bar and Dan and running from whatever was bursting against the seams of his body and mind. Something beyond hind was breaking free and Brock was running away from it, running from himself.

He was overwhelmed by his urge to fight and fuck and flee the urge to fuck and kill.

Brock was physically fit and always active. He had had an adult lifetime of pushing himself and training, intense physical effort spurred by a need to perform for demanding trainers and his own merciless self-expectations. Right now there was more than the urge to perform and impress, like when he was nineteen and the possessive lustful eyes of the corporal were watching in special interest. More than a few years later and his own eyes were on Jack Rollins, needing to keep up and shine, so that Jack’s eyes would flicker over him with that same interest.

There was always more than enough urge and surge in Brock. But today it was too much, he was overwhelmed.

So much for performance enhancement drugs, he thought, as he stopped, muscles spent and burning, leaning over with his hands on his knees. At that, a wave of nausea took over and he retched, head spinning and white light in his vision, weakly heaving thin strings of bilious whiskey in saliva on the ground. Disgusting and bitter, just like the whiskey had been in the first place.

Running a hand over his mouth to wipe the last strings of drool away, Brock sat down heavily on the ground, breathing hard.

 _What the fuck had just happened? What the fuck?_ He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, to control the last waves of nausea and stabilize his breathing.

Drawing his knees up and hugging them, he rested his head against them. The woods seemed quiet. His heart recovered a normal resting pace, now that he was still. The woods were quiet, but not silent. Birds chirruped, twigs snapped under the weight of small woodland creatures, a squirrel chittered at him from the branches above him.

_What the fuck just happened?_

It was a bustling commotion in its own way right now. A little city of nature and it felt good. Easy to block out the distant rushing of traffic from the road. Restful.

_Sometimes it felt good to keep both feet in the natural world and leave the ways of the stone hut dwellers behind. Sometimes that way he could sit and wait in the woods, and if he was lucky he would catch the sound of music, the wind in the reeds by the river, or even the music of pipes…_

Calmer now, Brock tried to piece together what the hell was happening. Seriously, he had just assaulted Dan. He had not behaved like that for years. Perhaps the drug was having some effect after all, heightening his aggressive urges, which he knew were linked, endocrinology-wise, to sexual ones. Like there was nothing like a good hard fuck after a tough mission, life re-affirming and glorious.

This behaviour was not what he had been anticipating, though. Steve Rogers did not behave like that. Emil Blonsky however… some kind of enhancement serum had turned him into a psycho monster, and then there was Bruce Banner. Then again there was the Asset.

The Asset was deliberately stripped of everything but aggression and primal hunting urges, enabled by some kind of enhancement. What if this program was making versions of that?

Fear of what he had just done and a new, gnawing unease about what might be happening to him because of this drug program he had signed up for set Brock’s heart beating faster again. He needed to deal with this, though. What if Hydra/SHIELD found out about this because Dan called the police?

_What the - what the fuck was Jack going to say?_

Brock pulled out his phone. He needed to call Jack, he needed Jack.

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock has got himself into a mess and it's up to Jack to pick up the pieces.

Jack Rollins left training in the capable hands of Steve Rogers after a frantic call from his friend Dan Heath, during which his phone was blowing up with missed calls and messages from Brock. Using his implacable calm to reassure Dan of his concern and imminent arrival with help, he then answered the next call from Brock. Brock sounded garbled, panic stricken and as shaken as Dan had been.

Jack remained as efficiently reassuring as he had been with the first distressed caller, ascertaining where Brock was and telling him to remain right there, and wait for him, away from the bar.

Next, he called the bar’s proprietor, then a Hydra-affiliated doctor who had a private general practice clinic and two members of STRIKE Team Alpha who owed personal favors.

Mustering all the considerable charm he could choose to exert when needs must, he left the training session in Steve’s hands on the pretext that Brock had suffered a minor but inconveniencing injury while off sick. That might turn out to be true, depending on what Brock had to say for himself.

\---------------------------------------------

Bees buzzed lazily, twigs snapped and there was a rustling in the undergrowth. The wind blew gently in the tree branches above. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, Brock peered cautiously around it and watched the bar and the parking lot.

He could see his former ‘prey’, standing with the bar owner, talking. When a familiar pickup truck pulled into the parking lot he blinked nervously, although it was the very thing he was hoping to see. He shrank further behind the trunk, where his vision was obscured slightly by a line of bushes in the middle distance. It was like a child covering their eyes and thinking themselves hidden, as the distance would make him visible to the parking lot.

But it was reassuring until Jack got out of the pickup truck, with two members of STRIKE and approached Dan. At the sight of the very person he wanted to see, Brock pulled back behind the tree and crouched down with his back to them. Jack had told him to wait and he would wait, he would resist the urge to run away and hide in the woods.

It seemed an eternity of waiting. It was enough time for Jack to get the hoist arranged in his truck and for the two men, and Dan, to help him get his bike stowed on it. It seemed like forever to Brock.

He was still huddled behind the tree after what were actually a few minutes, when a twig snapped and his attention was taken by audible breathing, and a familiar, comforting scent. He raised his head slowly, taking in a pair of big black boots and black pants on his way to coming eye to eye with Jack. Jack stood with his arms hanging, shoulders relaxed, framed in sunlight and green leaves.

He had that stance of implacable calm that indicated Brock was in trouble far more than any shouting ever did.

Jack spoke first, after casting a slightly scathing glance over Brock’s skulking manner and general dishevelment.

“Up,” he said.

Brock braced himself against the trees and rose, reaching to brush leaves off his pants while Jack stepped forward and grasped his upper arm, claiming him, taking custody and charge.

“Car,” said Jack.

\--------------------------------------------------

Jack hustled Brock into the pick-up truck and slammed the door shut.

On the drive home, there was silence, until Brock blurted out.

“What's gonna happen?”

Jack shrugged, adjusting his grip on the wheel to absorb and suppress a flicker of irritation.

“We’ll talk later,” he said.

“What's happened to Dan- ?”

“Later,” repeated Jack, swiftly switching on the radio.

Brock knew better than to turn it off or insist on a conversation. He slouched further into his seat, chewing the gun callous on his left thumb.

Jack kept his eyes on the road ahead, careful and steady as always.

\--------------------------------------------------

The closest thing to any shouting came later, at Jack’s house. Jack had stated, in a reserved, professional voice what he had done to placate Dan, which was to arrange for him to see Dr Lyme in Maryland. Dan had a nasty bite on his shoulder and Jack had given him $200 expenses to have it looked at, citing paranoid jealousy coupled with an episode of PTSD-related temporary psychosis on Brock’s part to explain the incident.

He had added that Brock was unable to keep down his meds during a bout of ‘Goose Virus’ and should not have been left unsupervised today.

“I’m not on meds!” Brock had protested. “You made him think I’m a complete psycho dick!”

Jack sighed and put his hands behind his back, patiently. He looked at Brock with his head tilted and one questioning raise of both eyebrows said “And your point is…?”

Brock rubbed out a sudden pinpoint stab of threatened stress headache in his left temple.

“I fucked up,” he conceded, needlessly.

He looked at Jack unhappily. He remembered how Jack had been the one he knew would help him with this today, come through for him like he always did. The price to pay for that was often this restrained exasperation. It was how Jack coped with Brock’s shit, he guessed, but sometimes it was worse than more violent or loud recriminations - which always ended in Brock getting a good hard fuck of the kind he still liked.

“I fucked up so badly,” Brock stomped over to the couch, Jack watching him with an unreadable expression.

Jack nodded. “You did. Big time,” He scratched lightly at the scar on his chin with one finger, thoughtfully. “What’s going on, Brock?”

Jack moved in front of Brock on the couch and sat on his haunches, inviting explanations.

Brock was sitting sprawled, with his legs spread; arms bent limply either side of him, looking exhausted and defeated. He licked the corner of his mouth nervously, and spoke up, however.

“I saw Dr Woodhouse yesterday. He’s running a program, performance enhancement. I signed up and got accepted....” He paused, nervous at the way Jack rubbed a hand over his face and was watching him with his face in one hand.

There were two responses to Brock’s fuck ups from Jack. One an explosive reaction to Brock fucking up in front of him and one like this, controlled assessment, when he needed filling in on some of the details and circumstances of the fuck up.

“What do you mean performance enhancement?” Asked Jack. “Like a steroids thing?”

“I guess… I dunno. Like that, only more advanced. Enhancement… not like Rogers, but that kind of thing…” Brock sighed. “It’s why I felt shitty yesterday. It’s why I - I guess it’s why I did that - earlier....”

“You fucking idiot,” said Jack. “You stupid, fucking dick,”

Brock closed his eyes and accepted that assessment. He knew how Jack felt about that kind of thing. He had heard Jack say things before about the exploitation by Hydra of its members. Things that were tantamount to disloyalty, that Hydra viewed its combatant staff as expendable, brute force henchmen. Things that Brock ought to report, strictly speaking.

Jack’s throwaway remarks were a function of his nature, he vocalized thought processes with no filter, especially around Brock. If Brock had ever heard anyone else saying the same thing, especially those under his command, he would have reported them like he was obliged to and trained to.

But it was Jack, and Jack’s first loyalties were to himself and to Brock and to a slightly lesser extent the STRIKE Team. Brock was grateful for that, always, how many times had Jack smoothed out Brock’s mistakes? Where would he even be without him? He felt that strongly and once again, today, Jack had come through for him. He owed Jack, big time.

“You should have told me about this,” said Jack.

“You’d have just tried to talk me out of it,” sighed Brock.

“Damn right,” Jack reached out and started unlacing one of Brock’s boots. “But you’d have still gone ahead and done it. I know you; I know how you’ve always been curious about that kind of thing. But you should have told me you had done it. I would have stayed here yesterday and kept a better eye on you today.”

“We can’t always take leave together,” said Brock. It was the kind of thing he always used to say whenever they did take leave together. He said it now almost automatically; when he knew he was in the wrong he often said something argumentative, as a defense.

“Shut the fuck up, Rumlow,” said Jack, also as an automatic response more than anything else, he had removed Brock's boot now and tugged off his sock. He repeated the procedure with the left boot and sock, while Brock watched, coming down from his stress.

He knew Jack didn't like feet much, but was not surprised when Jack took the right foot lightly in both hands, rested the heel on his knee and laced his fingers over the top of it. Feet were just a bony, unattractive feature for Jack, generally, he was not fond of handling them, he had confessed once.

Brock's feet were clean and well cared for as much as the rest of him. They were a pale olive color, with small, neat toes and slender ankles. He had short, well defined arches of the type common to those with smaller feet and they had the same lean quality, with visible blood vessels, as the rest of his limbs. He sighed and wiggled his toes in a mixture of contentment and slight arousal at the light touch and support from Jack’s long, gun calloused fingers. Being touched gently in a sensitive area worked like a charm on Brock, making him relax and finally let go of the stress of today’s incident.

Jack passed his thumbs over the sole of Brock's foot twice and then pressed them onto the indented area on the inside of the ball, kneading.

“I have a job in two days’ time,” he said. “You are gonna have to come with me. I can't leave you like this,”

There were no ‘buts’ or ‘ifs’ from Brock, Jack knew exactly what to do to make him agree to most things and how best to get him into an agreeable frame of mind. He could always make him calm and compliant. He knew exactly where to stroke and knead on Brock’s feet; they were the places Jack couldn't bear to be touched in.

Brock had discovered that long ago, when trying to give Jack an impromptu foot rub. It was Brock’s idea of heaven and he had wanted to show Jack some reciprocal appreciation. It had resulted in a loud yell and a literal knee jerk reaction that could have resulted in a concussion had Brock not had good evasive reflexes.

“You’d better speak to Woodhouse,” said Jack, kneading Brock’s instep with enough pressure to hint at deflected annoyance and made Brock’s foot curl reflexively. Those big thumbs always carried the same hint of danger that Jack did in general. A mixture of soothing and potential threat was what attracted Brock to Jack on several levels.

“If he wants you in for tests or check-ups - which I damn well hope he does - then I’ll come with you,” continued Jack.

Brock looked at Jack thoughtfully, his head tilting like a quizzical puppy’s. Brock had signed up for this experiment without consulting Jack, for his own reasons and on his own terms. He had done something he had been curious about for a while, which was important to him, without Jack’s advice or permission. Now Jack was still taking charge, taking over and Brock imagined them in Dr Woodhouse’s office; Jack speaking up and talking over Brock, insisting the doctor do this and that, hushing Brock, like he was taking a five year old for a medical assessment.

It sparked a flash of resentment that was more of an instinctual thing these days, a function of the contrary way Brock’s brain was wired. The stubborn, argumentative side of his personality - which might seem like his default state to outsiders - had always seemed to clash with the way Jack sometimes bulldozed him in their private lives. There was a deeper, more private side of Brock that welcomed the micromanagement and had to admit the fact Jack felt concerned enough to do this was kind of touching.

It was, after all, the thing he had grasped at after today’s unsettling episode. He had asked for Jack’s help at once and he was getting it. All Jack was doing was smoothing everything over for Brock in the wake of a fuck up and it was not the first time he ever had.

“Yeah, I’ll call him,” agreed Brock, reasonably. “It’s probably side effects, all this… stuff today. And the hair and -”

“Ssssh,” said Jack, pleasantly. “Stop talking,”

It was good advice. Brock did not want to think about earlier today, and worrying about hair growth, homicidal sexual aggression and wanting to eat raw steaks rang alarm bells and gave him thoughts of cheesy horror films.

_Running through the forest on four legs was faster than two. His senses were more alert, and his hunger more immediate. Everything was more heightened, and when he heard the music like winds through the reeds, the pleasure more exquisite._

Brock wanted to think about nothing at all but the relaxing, soothing rhythm of Jack’s fingers and thumbs on his foot. Unconsciously his hand slid into his crotch…

“Ah-ah!” Jack tapped his hand sharply, pushing it to the side. “You just wait.”

Brock’s eyes snapped open in surprise, and then rolled up briefly. But he laced his hands behind his head and closed his eyes again. If Jack wanted to play his ‘taking it torturously slow’ games, then fine. Brock owed him for today.

Taking it slow was one of Jack’s more benign, if wickedly drawn out forms of punishment. All good, as far as Brock was concerned.

Jack now focussed his attention on Brock’s big toe. Squeezing the pad, which was slightly harder along the edge, not quite a callous because Brock exfoliated and moisturized his feet as scrupulously as he did the rest of his body. The pad felt rather leathery today; it reminded Jack vaguely of the ‘toe-beans’ of an animal, like a cat or a dog.

He thought nothing of that, and dipped his head down in a way that gave Brock a little shiver of anticipation. Jack’s tongue darted out, flicking the pad of Brock’s toe, before firmly licking it, all the way up from where it met his foot to the tip of the pad. He took the whole toe in his mouth, his lower set of teeth grazing the underside.

Brock went very still. Wiggling his toes right now would result in a sharp nip, potentially. That would be rewarding enough in its own way, to Brock’s mind, but he knew this was about getting him relaxed. So he let himself bask in the sensations as Jack moved his lips over the top side of the toe, tongue cradling the pad, darting sideways to delve into the gap between that toe and the next.

Jack might not like feet very much, but he knew Brock’s feet as intimately as the rest of him and knew exactly what to do to them. He caressed the top of the foot with his fingers, scraping his blunt fingernails over the raised veins and prominent tarsals, causing little shockwaves of sensation that almost tickled while they nearly stung.

Jack sucked Brock’s big toe, tugging the toe into a straight line, pulling the knuckles taut, then releasing, relaxing the toe. Brock could get off on this alone, if Jack continued systematically with each toe. His feet were highly erogenous and it was relaxing, too. Just what he needed after today’s events.

But Jack was clearly in the mood for teasing, surreptitiously watching Brock’s reactions and chuckling at his squirming and the contented little whimpers. With a final sweep of his tongue around the base of the big toe, he pulled away abruptly, dropping Brock’s foot. He started to inch forward on his knees, push Brock’s legs together and unfasten Brock’s jeans.

“Lift up,” he said, and Brock raised his hips to lift his ass clear of the sofa seat so that Jack could slide his pants and underwear down to his knees. No further than that, for now, it was a trick of Jack’s to keep Brock physically hampered and slightly restrained.

Jack shuffled down his own pants swiftly and Brock moved on impulse, to help with that. But Jack pushed his arms away, grabbing his wrists and pinning them above his head against the sofa back.

“Just. Wait,” he said, again. Kneeling up over Brock on the couch cushion, he straddled him, the soft jersey of his boxer shorts brushed Brock’s erection as he settled over Brock’s hips. The shorts were slightly damp, and it was clear that Jack was about to use some of his considerable self-restraint here, in order to tantalize Brock.

He leaned down and began nuzzling at Brock’s neck, breathing in the Axe Apollo smell, flicking his tongue around Brock’s earlobe. This was as irresistible to Brock as toe sucking, Jack snuffling around his neck and ears, and he whined, trying to push up into Jack’s crotch for friction, but held still by the weight of Jack’s lower body resting on his.

His wrists were pinned in the double vice of those gun-calloused, big hands of Jack’s. There was no immediate release in any sense and the only pay back right now was the stubble rash Jack was going to get. Brock didn’t care about pay back anyway. He wriggled and made an impatient squealing sound.

“Just wait,” murmured Jack, yet again, his tongue darting into the groove behind Brock’s ear, damp and teasing, like the damp and teasing mass inside the soft jersey shorts lower down. Brock groaned, and it was a strikingly deep and resonant sound to Jack’s ears, possibly because Jack was so close to his throat, but still strangely like a growl.

Brock was vaguely aware of Jack's passing some comment on his impatience and sounding like a puppy, moving back just enough to give his mouth room to speak. Brock seized the moment. The let up in the pressure on his hips allowed him to push them forward, twice, hard, moving himself up and down and gaining friction.

“Hey!” Jack rallied and pulled away, grabbing Brock around the waist, lifting and turning him to kneel up on the sofa. “No!” He said, firmly, like he was talking to a disobedient puppy. “You come when I say; you come on my dick or not at all!”

Ignoring a torrent of foul language and a sound midway between a snarl and a sob from Brock, Jack pushed his underwear down finally. There was no taking advantage of windows of opportunity when Jack was in this frame of mind. Jack knew better than to let Brock have his legs free to wrap around him in erotic wrestling holds and always resorted to pinning him and bringing out the ‘come on my dick’ line.

He parted Brock’s asscheeks and spat, heavily. Vulgar, insulting, inadequate and brutally basic, that just appealed to the side of Brock that wanted to be pounded until he was red and sore. It also expressed the side of Jack that was all too happy to oblige him.

It was almost all it took for Brock to come without being ‘on’ Jack’s dick, sometimes. But Jack wrapped one arm around Brock’s waist to stop him rubbing on the sofa and pulled his hips and ass back to meet his cock. When he slid in, it was slow, torturously slow and he kept it that way, dragging it out for both of them until Jack was red in the face and gasping into the back of Brock’s neck and Brock was biting into the back of the couch to stifle his own cries.

Brock came first and there was no shame in that, today. There was a roaring in his ears, like the sound of Jack’s bike - or the river where the wind sang through the reeds - and it was perfect. Jack was sprawling over his back and they were both collapsing on the sofa, with Brock wriggling his legs to shuck off his pants finally so that he could wrap his legs over Jack’s lower body. With Jack wrapping his arms around Brock’s upper body, the breath of each stirring the other’s hair, face to face.

Close together as they should be. With Jack behind him Brock could face anything. He would get over these side effects the enhancement drug was having and they would face whatever the world threw at them together, as always.

Right then Brock could think of nothing he wanted more, than the life he already had.


	4. Chapter Four

Dr Woodhouse looked at the results displayed on the screen for the fourth time. His normally tidy lab office desk was cluttered with printouts and files from several years of testing the drug therapy he had devised on primates and human subjects. He had trialled the drug on a batch of humans, some of them Hydra employed volunteers and a couple of people who had not volunteered but had no better options.

In a few cases the drug had had no more effect than a course of anabolic steroids. In a couple more it had enhanced the person’s performance, but raised their metabolism to dangerous levels and caused death by heart failure. Two more had enhanced physical performance after their dose, showing strength and stamina at least 75% greater than that of various kinds of Olympic athletes. They had also proved resistant to various kinds of induced illnesses and infection.

That was pretty much the result expected and the project had been approved by Hydra Science division for a testing program using subjects who were viable, valued Hydra personnel. Which was why Dr Woodhouse had advertised the program to combative staff, a group of already physically fit, high performing personnel who would find the enhancement beneficial to their function.

There was no way Dr Woodhouse had seen any evidence of increased aggression or sex drive - or more specifically the two being linked in quite the way described by Brock Rumlow. Brock had visited him the day before yesterday, accompanied by a grave-faced Agent Rollins. It appeared there had been an unfortunate incident in which Commander Rumlow reported attacking someone, being overcome by something he assumed was a ‘sexual frenzy’ with an accompanying desire to tear the man to pieces.

He also reported and showed increased rate of hair growth, a hunger for raw meat and a heightening of his senses.

Agent Rollins sat quietly while Rumlow spoke, but Woodhouse felt the distinct impression of coldly appraising green eyes boring into him even as he focussed on his patient, Brock. Rollins loomed when Woodhouse photographed Brock’s admittedly hairy legs and groin area. Dr Woodhouse thought briefly that someone clearly of some kind of Latino or Italian heritage as Rumlow was ( he remembered something about that in Rumlow’s medical notes, Italian grandparents or something) might be more hirsute than someone of Northern European descent. But as Rumlow insisted he had waxed a few days ago and shaved this morning, it did seem there was something unusual going on.

Rollins leaned forward menacingly when Woodhouse took a blood sample from the Commander for investigation. Dr Woodhouse reassured them that these symptoms were most likely a hormonal imbalance caused by the onset of the drug’s effects on his system.

Aggression, sexual desires, even the strange dreams Brock had also reported could be attributed to a kind of endocrine rearrangement - rather like an intense, sudden puberty. He was pretty sure it would all settle down, but he would investigate. In the meantime, he would sign Brock off work and speak about ensuring Agent Rollins was free to take some kind of compassionate leave to take care of him. He did not add that he was slightly alarmed by the nature of these side effects, he remained reassuring and calm. Brock seemed suitably reassured, but Rollins repeatedly narrowed his eyes and breathed in through his nose in a manner which could have seemed like a pantomime of intimidation had it not been actually quite intimidating.

Woodhouse ended the consultation by assuring them he would contact them with results in three days, hopefully, and urging Brock to come in at once if anything else happened.

Two days later, he had run several batches of tests on Brock’s post dose blood samples, compared them with samples from before the dose and found that several changes had taken place. These were in keeping with the effects he expected from the compound and he was reasonably reassured that the hirsutism, the heightened aggression and so on were indeed something rather like a surge in hormonal activity and endocrine balance, just as he had told Brock.

However… there was something on a genetic level, something that was in fact present before the dose, but had seemed irrelevant at the time. A kind of cell marker that did not seem to resemble anything that could signify anything harmful, like cancer, but was just there. The kind of thing that Dr Woodhouse was not interested in, just something in Brock’s makeup that could indicate what part of the world his ancestors originated from, if it indicated anything. Nothing to do with enhancement programs and not relevant to Brock’s health or tissue viability.

It could be that there was something in Brock that made him respond unusually to the program. Dr Woodhouse decided to get advice from someone who specialized in that kind of thing. At best it was just something that had been overlooked and might make the transition stage more difficult for Brock. At worst it was something that might make him react adversely in more ways than he already had.

At the the most honest level it was an oversight on Dr. Woodhouse’s part not to have screened more deeply. Pushing aside thoughts of Bruce Banner and Emil Blonsky, Dr Woodhouse emailed his geneticist acquaintance and made a mental note to update his work to look like he had gone down this route more thoroughly before dosing Brock.

If his program failed it would set him back years and ruin his reputation. That would be the worst outcome he could possibly imagine.

 

                                                                                                                         *****************************

 

It was 03.55 in the morning and Brock was sitting cross-legged in Jack’s spare room, with the contents of an old shoe box spread around him. Years ago, he had started bringing boxes and old suitcases of things from his city apartment, to store here.

He had stayed over at Jack’s house a lot, from the time just after their training when Jack inherited the house from his grandparents. He used it as a base as much as his own place, had been housesitter when Jack was sent away on his specialist missions and for many years he had gradually added more things of his own, storing them in this room.

It made sense, there was more room here than at his apartment. It made sense to stay here because it was quiet around here, Jack’s neighbors left him in peace generally. It was perfect for convalescing after work related injuries and for keeping their relationship discreet.

Brock had boxes of relics from his Army days and things he had collected on their many work travels and their handful of private vacations. Things like the vulgar little plastic figure of a satyr he had impulsively acquired in Arezzo some ten years back.

He still didn’t understand why he had got it, Jack had remarked it was probably the little ‘plastic hairy dick’ Brock liked. Brock didn’t understand himself why the fact it was holding a set of little Pan pipes to its mouth made it appealing to him. It was probably something from one of the old tales his Nona used tell him.

 

It had made no sense to give up his apartment, it was closer to work and to city amenities. But Brock had brought a lot of things here, to Jack’s house, that were of no real use to him, but he couldn’t just discard for reasons he couldn't explain.

The box he was looking through now contained photos and keepsakes from his grandmother, specifically. Brock had little sense of family overall, much of his childhood was something he had stored away in a dark place in his mind. He did not access it and for the most part he cared nothing much about it. The one exception to that was his Nona, his maternal grandmother, who had remained a constant and positive figure all through his life, until her death some ten years ago.

The box he was looking at contained letters she had written him when he was away as a young man, in the Army and then in what she thought was SHIELD only. There were also letters exchanged between her and his grandfather - he barely remembered him, but what he did remember was good. There were photos, some of his mother at various ages, which Brock had little interest in and only kept because they had been of interest to his Nona.

There were a few he liked a lot, featuring him and his Nona at various stages of his life. The oldest was of her sitting with a maybe six-plus months old Brock on her lap, old enough to sit and engage with the photographer (highly likely his grandfather) with a three-toothed grin and beaming dark eyes.

His grandmother’s photos showed how beautiful she was in her youth, with big brown eyes and delicately sculpted cheekbones. They had always interested Brock. There were a few of her at younger ages, black and white, snapshots of history. The one Brock was now holding had been right at the bottom, which he was now remembering had intrigued him as a child.

His Nona had told him a story when they were looking at it once. It didn't exactly explain the picture itself, but was something related to it. She was probably too young to remember exactly what was going on at the time of its taking. It was a picture of her, aged about five, standing in the doorway of her family’s house in the old country, with a ribbon in her hair, wearing a cotton dress typical of little girls of the period.

She was barefoot and in front of her, standing in a protective curve around her legs, was a huge dog - part wolf, possibly. She could not clearly remember a pet from that time of her life, she had been told she had a puppy when she was little, but that they could not bring him to America for various practical reasons.

She had told Brock a story her parents had told her about the local breed of dog a lot of people around Arezzo had. They were said to be originally bred from wolves, a hunting dog breed dating back to 800BC, when Etruscans began taming and using them. It was said that certain people in the region, of the oldest families, had had them ever since. They were known to be loyal and useful, were famous for their gentleness and protectiveness around children, but when they grew old they would return to the old forests to spend their last days, however attached to their humans they were.

Brock had woken up in the early hours, just now, after yet another weird dream.

It had involved the woods and hills he had been dreaming about a lot recently, mixed up with his Nona, younger and wearing her wedding dress and veil, outside her old family house in Tuscany, telling him why she could not bring her dog to America. It had seemed to Brock, in the weird, disjointed way of dreams, that he was the dog as much as himself.

 

_It would be cruel to take him, she was saying, beautiful and young, with traces of tears on her cheeks. They were ancient dogs, who were still part wolf, some said they were also in part the descendants of the old folk who lived here in ancient times. That their souls were part human, the souls of the Luceres tribe, who sheltered Romulus and Remus, but warred with the founding generations of the Roman civilization. It was said they took the form of man-wolves in war, and when they felt the old ways would be buried under a new way of life, taken over by those who built huge stone dwellings in the service of their gods, they ran to the forests._

_There they remained until they no longer knew how to return to the stone dwelling ways, until running on four legs was their default state. Those who were tamed and lived with the stone dwellers always returned to the forests when they grew old._

_“Some of them, however, did not run to the forests. They stayed in the stone dwellings until their childrens’ children only knew how to run on two legs.” Said Brock’s young, beautiful grandmother. “Those people always wanted their furry cousins around, however, and their cousins made the best pets, and protectors, and guardians.”_

_Brock knew it would be cruel to take his Nona’s pet across the sea to America, he would want to stay here, among the cypresses and close to the forests and the hills. One day, he would grow old and he would hear the music, like the wind in the reeds and he would know it was time to return to the wild. To the world invisible to the eyes of all but those who carried the blood of Luceres, where the supper ran with branches on their heads and the soft tawny fur and hooves accompanied the sound of the music._

_Brock didn't want to leave his Nona, she looked sad, but she knew the stories and he knew the truth. He could hear the music and he could hear her voice and he was torn. His ears drooped, his tail hung between his legs and his big brown eyes swam with tears. His lower lip would have wobbled had it not been too thin, and drawn back over his sharp teeth in a frightened snarl._

_Being torn between his Nona, and the music like wind through the reeds that made the hair all along his spine stand up while it called him was the worst thing he had ever felt. In the end the music won, it spoke of tawny fur and big hands to scratch behind his eyes, to smack and stroke and lead him._

_But it was still like being torn in two, with Nona standing in silent grief. Brock raised his head and cried._

_The sound carried on the cypress-scented wind, through the forest and across the valley of his Nona’s people. It was a long, draw out howl…_

 

Brock roused to the sound of (hooves?) padding bare feet and a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, making him jump slightly.

Jack squatted down next to him.

“You had another dream?” He said, without preamble.

Brock nodded and put the photo down on the floor.

“I’m making coffee. We’ve got an hour before we need to go,” Jack informed him. He patted Brock’s arm.

“Come on, up,”

“I - I don’t know if I should come,” muttered Brock. “You’ve got work to do,”

“I’m not leaving you here. I need to keep an eye on you,” insisted Jack.

Brock sighed and nodded. Jack was right, as usual. Helping Jack cause an explosion during a council meeting in the ass-end of Eastern Europe to incite factional war and give Hydra a ‘peace-keeping’ toe-hold in the region was probably just what he needed. Perfect for keeping his mind off this weird crap he was going through. Something familiar and with a purpose he understood.

Jack had tilted his head a few degrees sideways to look at the picture of Brock’s Nona and her ‘puppy’. Brock looked up at him, remembering how interested he had been in the Etrurian history when they vacationed there once. More interested than Brock had been at the time, even though it was supposed to be his cultural heritage.

“That is a big dog,” said Jack. “Is it one of those Lu… Lucani hounds they have in that area?” He looked at Brock for confirmation and then his expression changed into that slightly disdainful, exasperated look he gave when he really thought Brock ought to know the answer to something. “Like the ones they say they had in the time of Romulus and Remus?”

Brock suppressed the feeling that his mouth needed to to turn down under the exasperation and shrugged.

“Something they have in that area, I guess,” he said.

“I’ll have to look that up,” said Jack. “Fascinating history, where your folks came from.” He looked thoughtfully at the photo. “Shame we can't ask your Nona. Nice lady…” he nodded to himself and ruffled Brock’s hair, abruptly. “Come on, breakfast, coffee,”

He probably thought Brock was getting sentimental about his grandmother because of the hormones. Which was not quite accurate, but Brock felt for some reason, Jack looking up some of his ancestors’ history sounded like a good idea. Anything Jack did usually ended up being a good idea, he had to admit.

 

                                                                                                            *************************

 

A few hours later, in a quinjet headed for an obscure, troubled state between Romania and Bulgaria, Jack was quietly reading his tablet. He had adopted that shut-off, absorbed manner that meant that he was reading for leisure, and wanted minimum interaction, but he had Brock on his mind as he read. Brock was sitting, somewhat sprawled, next to him, quiet and seeming like he was trying very hard to stay awake.

“I thought there was something about dogs in those old stories,” said Jack, getting his companion’s attention and a look of dazed but polite interest. Jack rarely invited discussion while actually reading, and he had learned long ago that Brock was not an avid fan of classical literature or a lot of general knowledge outside military or maybe political history. Sometimes Brock would engage in discussion about the Gothic novels Jack liked to read - that was possibly because melodramatic and miserable asshole characters were something he could relate to.

“Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome,” said Jack. “They were fostered by a woman named Larentia, whose nickname was ‘She-wolf’. It’s possibly why later legends had them taken in and suckled by an actual wolf. The Luceres tribe was one of the three tribes mentioned in all these early accounts of ancient Rome. Legends from ancient Etruria say that these Luceres people were wolf-people.”

Jack glanced at Brock’s frowning, worried looking face.

“Did your Nona ever tell you stories about things like that?”

Brock shrugged. “Guess she must have done. I remember she told me about the local dog breed that dated back to those old times, That’s why I was dreaming about them. That’s why I wanted to look at that picture,” he chewed the inside of his cheek nervously. “I think it’s important,” he added.

“Important how?”

“I dunno,” Brock leaned closer and rested his head against Jack’s shoulder.

Jack smiled at him encouragingly, A quick sleep before they arrived would do no harm, Brock needed to be refreshed, ready to help Jack with the job. Throwing himself into something like this was bound to take his mind off all this crap. It was going to do Brock the world of good.

 

                                                                                                                       *******************************

 

In the small town, where they met up with a local Hydra cell, Jack took the lead. He had planned where to plant his explosives in the Town Hall and the local Hydra team and Brock carried out his directions, disguised as janitors, plumbers and, in Brock’s case, a security officer.

As as arranged, Brock got the Mayor to leave the meeting halfway through, on the pretext of a security breach. He escorted the Mayor to the Hydra people, who whisked him away to safety, where they would offer him help against the local insurgents that they would convince him were responsible for the explosion.

The bombs were remotely detonated half an hour later. An hour after that, Jack was in the safehouse he and Brock had been assigned, a remote country cabin in a wooded mountain valley. They were going to be there until later that evening. Plenty of time to relax and unwind, he thought, watching a live TV broadcast by the Mayor, who was denouncing the insurgents who had endangered the lives of council members and staff with today's’ ‘act of terror’.

Jack turned off his SHIELD issue tablet and went outside. Brock was standing in the yard, looking at the view across a wooded valley. He was wearing an old Army hooded rainproof jacket over the security uniform, with the hood up. Standing next to him, Jack felt a rush of pride in Brock. He had done well today.

Brock usually performed perfectly in the field, no matter what was going on in his private life. So it was not surprising, but Jack felt a great deal of satisfaction; he felt he was responsible for Brock growing into the Agent and Commander he was. Brock was a beautiful work of art that Jack had spent years nurturing.

He was also cute, compact and endlessly fuckable.

The fresh mountain air and scent of pine forest did things to Jack sometimes. Brock had mentioned some of his dreams and the clearly sexual nature of some them, something about nuzzling tawny fur. Jack had found that oddly hot, though to his credit he didn't say that to Brock, who worried about the dreams.

It seemed familiar to Jack - but then Brock nuzzling in ‘tawny hair’ was something he was happily familiar with on an intimate level. Cold mountain air and the vestiges of thawing snow, the sounds of birds in the forest, those things were doing things to Jack right now. As was the adrenalin rush he always got during and after a job well done - and the presence of Brock.

Jack nonchalantly reached down and grabbed a handful of Brock’s ass. Brock went very still, frowning into the valley and Jack saw his nostrils twitch as though he was scenting the air.

“Not here. Not here…” murmured Brock.

Well…. he was just playing hard to get. There was no-one to see them, nothing for miles.

Jack chuckled and rubbed his nose on Brock’s temple affectionately. “What’re you talking about? Who's gonna see - the squirrels, huh?”

“I dunno… I guess, there’s something -”

Jack cut him off by putting a hand over his mouth. Hard to get was cute, but sometimes Jack just wanted to get to it. So did Brock, usually, this was just a game Jack was not in the mood for. He slid one arm around Brock’s waist and levered him in front of him with a hip.

Putting up a struggle and making whiny, petulant protests were part of Brock’s act, left over from his fragile masculinity hang ups and his need to be dominated. Jack knew that, and manhandled Brock over to a close-by outbuilding despite the wriggling and muffled noise.

He held Brock up against the shed wall with his hip and unfastened his pants with one hand, the other still over Brock’s lower face. Brock was perfectly capable of putting up a lot more effective resistance than he was right now, including biting, if he really objected. Jack reached around and unfastened Brock’s pants too, alternating in shuffling both their lower clothing down.

The air was cold on Jack’s dick and he pushed it up between Brock’s asscheeks seeking warmth and getting a lot more than that out of it. He pressed against Brock as far as he could and still allow movement.

There was pre-cum dripping from Jack’s cock, Brock’s ass was mottled with cold and covered in goosebumps already. There was no point wasting any time, for either of them, this kind of adrenalin-fuelled post mission fuck was a regular feature for them - and Brock’s hole was warm and tight and inviting.

Intense heat, biting cold and Brock squirming against the wall merged into one mind-blowing orgasm for Jack. When he reached around to finish Brock off he found Brock's hand already on the case. Putting his own hand over Brock’s, Jack rode out his own aftershocks in time to Brock’s release.

Brock made the most beautiful sounds, like yelping. It was music to Jack’s ears.

They stayed for a few minutes, huddled upright and pressed close for warmth, Jack resting his face in the side of Brock’s neck. When Brock turned his head and his tongue lapped the size of Jack’s cheek, Jack chuckled again.

That was new, a actual novelty in their comfortable rituals.

 

                                                                                                                                          *************************

 

Later, in the cellar of the safehouse, Brock was checking the generator. The sex and the mission had left him feeling a little drained. That was unusual, he felt achy and uncomfortable. Jack had been on the radio, arranging an extraction, and had been informed it would be much later, after dark. Usually that would mean more fucking, or at least some handjobs, but unusually, Brock was thinking that perhaps he might use the time for a sleep.

The generator was fine, and kicked into life. Coffee, thought Brock, that would help him feel more like himself. He had already finished the flask he had brought. He had sneaked a surreptitious smoke out back, after Jack had kissed his ear fiercely and left him outside to zip up and come in when he was ready.

It was then he was overcome with a bursting rush of the adrenalin that preceded his attack on Dan.

Taking a gasping breath, he grabbed at the generator to steady himself. His muscles cramped as his body tensed - presumably from the stimulus to move, he thought. But then something in his spine cracked and bulged, his jaw locked the moment he opened his mouth to cry out, to call Jack.

His hands and feet curled in some spasm, then uncurled. His first thought was he was glad he was barefoot - even though Jack would have berated him for starting the generator with no shoes on. Brock wanted to tear at his own clothes and skin, stretching, aching, body locking into weird positions. Time was distorted, his feet were elongating,in some kind of slow motion, as were his hands. He struggled out of his shirt and his pants were loose.

He could see hair on his hands and feel it. It was like a nightmare… but at the same time, there was something familiar about all this. Like his mind was telling him this was perfectly normal, this is what happens when - when what he couldn’t remember.

Then his mind cleared and everything became very simple. He had to get Jack.

 

                                                                                                                    ****************************************

 

Jack was packing things ready for extraction when the thing came out of the cellar.

At first, out of the corner of his eye he thought it was Brock. But when he looked up, he froze.

Huge fucking black dog, upright but bent at the spine, it made a sound like something he had seen on Youtube or somewhere, of a husky that had been trained to ‘talk’.

“ _Aaaa Ggg_ …”

Jack rallied, fumbling for a sidearm. But the creature leaped at him, a lithe move like a trained human as much as anything a dog might do. Its paws connected with his chest and his knees buckled with fear, overbalancing him and sending them both to the ground.with a grunt from Jack and a yelp from the thing.

.Jack scrabbled back instinctively on his elbows and heels. The thing closed the distance up his long body in seconds. Jack was nose-to-nose with a wolf. Black fur, with a spattering of grizzling at the muzzle. Its breath smelled of coffee and cigarettes… _You been smoking?_... and the fur between its ears was raised, still fucking styled. The eyes were a mixture of honey colors, a dark gold flecked with brown. It was as long as Jack, but the shape of a compact human merged with a wolf-body… there were defined muscles under the fur that Jack wanted to touch. He wanted to fucking pet the thing, because the eyes of the creature were not just an animal’s eyes. There was someone looking at him, someone so very familiar. There was even a faint smell of Axe.  
Fuck, it was kind of funny. The kind of funny where Jack could have laughed, but if he laughed now he would not stop until he had laughed his mind away. He would be reduced to a rocking lunatic clutching his ribs in mirthless laughter. Cackling his mind away with an asshole, gelled-fur Brock-wolf, until the last shreds of his sanity were shattered.

Its face was right over Jack’s now and a long pink tongue flicked at his nose. A small growl, somehow a decidedly friendly sound, deepened Jack’s confusion at this surreal nightmare. A little grunt. The paws scrabbled on his chest and he was pretty sure the thing’s tail was wagging… _Jesus fucking CHRIST..._

It nosed at the side of his neck with a long, soft, furry snout. Then it licked him again, burying its muzzle against his neck, there was the scrape of long teeth and Jack found his voice.

“No! Stop that! I said - NO!”

The thing pulled its head back, the ears flattening, the eyes taking on a hurt look... just like that fucking look Brock gave him sometimes... and it made a disappointed sound

_“Ohh Rooow…”_

_Just like_ Scooby-fucking-Doo.

All this and the smell of Axe and Brock’s eyes/not quite Brock’s eyes in a wolf thing’s face made Jack bark a harsh, bitter laugh.

There was a rumbling growl, and Jack thought now at least he was going to die and get out of this insane situation.

But the creature’s ears snapped up, its head raised to concentrate on something to their left and Jack moved, also attuned to ambient sounds and the sense of warning and danger this behavior engendered.

The creature snarled, baring long, perfect white wolf fangs - _Brock took good care of his teeth, of course_ \- and placed a paw lightly on Jack’s chest. The other paw was raised in an approximation of the freeze/halt hand signal he and Brock used. It wanted him to stay where he was - and in the next second it was scuttling out of the room. Jack heard the door open… _of course Brock can open a fucking door, Rollins, big deal..._ and it was gone.

Thirty seconds later there were shouts, and gunshots and Jack wanted to go out there, and see what the hell was going on. Scrambling to his feet, he took the sniper rifle he had left ready for just in case and ran outside.

 

In the woods… there were dead men. Blood. Out of the trees came the upright, dark-furred creature. He could finish it right now... _unless it needed silver bullets, oh fuck..._ but it crouched down in a more dog-like pose, and began to approach, slowly. Its tail was wagging for sure.

In front of Jack, it lowered its ears, raised its paws like one of those dogs trained to shake hands and made that sound again, _“Aaaaaagg”._

“Brock?” He was just confirming what he already knew. Jack lowered his rifle and knelt down, face to face with the crouching beast. With a shaking hand he scratched behind its ear.

“Come on, boy, let’s go inside,” he said.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick linking chapter to keep things moving.

Jack sighed deeply, sitting at the kitchen table in the safe house. He had spent the last fifteen minutes explaining to the extraction team that Commander Rumlow was ‘compromized’ and the utmost tact and diplomacy was still going to be needed when they arrived. He relaxed now, as much as the circumstances permitted.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he thought about making more coffee. It was almost as if nothing was wrong, he was going to make coffee, and tell Brock, because Brock was sure to want some.

There was a soft growl to his left and a long snout pushed under his arm, a heavy, furry head rested against his ribs and a pair of honey colored eyes was looking up at him. It was more appealing than it had any right to be.

Jack had put some music on to soothe himself, leaving the earbuds dangling around his neck while he contacted the extraction team. There was tinny percussion from the 90s dance music Brock had infiltrated into his playlist and the thing with him - Brock - nosed at one of the earbuds with obvious interest.

“You like that, huh?” Murmured Jack. Well of course he fucking did.

_Slam it to the left/If you’re having a good time/ Shake it to the right/ If you’re ready to feel fine_

“Some of the guys are coming, soon, to take us home,” said Jack, in a friendly, firm voice. “You gonna be a good boy, huh? Stay nice and quiet, so we can get home and… deal with this? Fix this?” Jack had no idea if the creature could actually understand him fully. He seemed to be acting like a dog at the moment, a friendly one - but dogs could be unpredictable and some only responded well to their owner or trainer.

This was not a dog, this was Brock, and he was in fact, what Jack understood to be some kind of werewolf - just like in an old movie, except right now Jack was still alive and physically intact. Not mentally, necessarily… but Jack could detach enough to think through a situation while remaining responsive and in control.

“Do you want something to drink… water?” asked Jack.

The creature wriggled upwards, through Jack’s arm, Jack pulling back a little to allow it to move. A paw reached out towards the bag Jack had left on the table. It contained a jar of instant coffee, Jack had brought that along with a tiny travel kettle and an adaptor plug. The thing - _Brock, this creature is Brock_ \- wanted coffee, just like he always did.

“You want some coffee?” Jack was confirming that partly to gauge how much Brock really was able to understand and how much 'Brock' really was present in the creature.

The thing - _the Brock-wolf?_ \- made a head movement towards the bag which was in part a definite nod.

“Okay,” said Jack, decisively, standing up and making a firm, plain move towards the bag with his hand. He could work with this for now. He was a trained professional, he could deal with potentially dangerous situations, handle hostile interactions and remain cautious, but keep control.

Brock-wolf shuffled back and sat in the chair next to the one Jack was vacating. Its posture was hunched, but there was a kind of half-human erectness about it which made it possible for it - _for him_ \- to sit, upper body curved over the table, resting on the heels of elongated hands as if they were elbows.

Jack filled the travel kettle from a kitchen sink, plugged it in using a mains adaptor he brought for use in different countries and stood with the back of his waist against the kitchen counter. He studied his companion, who was still sitting in his slumped way at the table.

Jack was rarely one to initiate conversation with anyone other than Brock. But there was something missing, here, and that was some form of communication. More often than not Brock would have been talking, now, in this time of waiting. Talking about the mission, or suggesting something to do in their next time off work.

Normally there would be some talking, or maybe a little bickering, and certainly there would have been some making out, maybe handjobs.

Jack filled in the gap of silence.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, softly.

Brock-wolf cocked his head in a responsive way, but made no sound.

Jack sighed. The kettle boiled and without thinking, just performing a familiar task, Jack poured some into a pair of travel mugs. He placed them on the table, one in front of Brock-wolf, who wriggled into a more upright position as far as he could. His paws closed around either side of the mug, toes with long, sharp claws delicately wriggling for purchase.

Jack had not thought that through. Brock no longer had opposable thumbs. What had been thumbs had now receded into dew claws, which Jack noticed were twitching in the struggle between human and wolf motor-neurology and behaviors. When his snout lowered towards the hot drink, Jack acknowledged that his mouth was no longer anatomically suitable to take a drink the way he usually did.

“Is that a good -”

There was a snort, a growling grunt and the kind of high pitched yelp on two notes that ended in a surprisingly squeaky sound emerging from such a large creature. The coffee mug tipped over, the Brock-wolf leaped back, knocking over his chair and twisting sideways to lean against the wall, shaking his grizzled furry head and pawing at his face.

“...idea…? Hey, are you okay?” Jack moved over, ascertaining that Brock-wolf had scalded his nose, pausing and darting back to the sink to wet a cloth. He reacted sensibly, to his credit, even as the situation seemed insane and surreal, he responded. He moved back over to Brock-wolf, who slid down the wall to sit up, in dog fashion, looking despondent.

Jack knelt down slowly, showing the damp cloth and very carefully reaching to place it over his companion's muzzle.

Brock recoiled just a little, with just a tiny show of teeth and a rumble, the start of a warning growl.

“Hey! Enough of that! Let me deal with it!” Jack knocked that on the head at once.

He was trying to help, after all; presumably Brock’s nose was sensitive in this state. Dogs, presumably wolves - _presumably descendants of ancient, legendary wolf-people_ \- had sensitive noses. Jack had seen him endure worse mishaps and injuries than this - though admittedly they sometimes involved a string of contrary curses if Brock felt Jack was fussing, just for Brock to keep face and not feel like a ‘pussy’.

Perhaps the little growl and half-snarl were Brock’s wolf-version of that. ‘Pussy’ was the wrong word for it on several levels, Jack thought mirthlessly.

“Come on, I’m trying to help,” said Jack, in a reasonable but firm tone. He placed the damp towel over the tip of Brock’s snout, gently smoothing the fabric with two fingers over the leathery nostril pad. Brock’s eyes closed momentarily, a ripple of relaxation passing through the powerful shoulder muscles under black fur.

He leaned slightly into the soothing damp coolness of the cloth and Jack’s hand and made a soft, contented whimper.

“There… that’s better… huh?” Jack’s eyes softened in a little amusement and the realization that Brock was momentarily cute like this. Fucked up, but it was cute.

“The guys are gonna be here soon,” Jack told him, as he seemed to relax and respond to his voice. “We’ll get back home and - get this...fixed.” He tried for a cognitive response again. “Who were those guys who came here? The local insurgents?”

Brock’s eyes took on a sharp intelligence and his eyebrow muscles rippled, concentrating, trying for speech, perhaps. His head bobbed once, sharply, in a definite nod.

“Good thing you were here to see them off,” said Jack, pleasantly. “Good job,”

Brock snuffled and one of his forepaws lifted, tapped at the palm of Jack’s hand and settled in the crook of his arm.

“That’s fucking adorable,” murmured Jack, aloud, but part of his internal monologue. The train of thought as he crouched here, with a Brock-wolf, and made sense of it as best he could. It could have been so, so much worse - it was not good, it needed to be fixed, but Jack was coping.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said, very much to Brock as much as himself. “ We’ll try again with the coffee - I’ll get you a bowl, and then we’ll run through what we’re gonna do about getting you out of here. We don't want to freak anyone out - so you are gonna have to do what I say, okay?”

Jack reached around with his free hand and scratched lightly behind Brock’s ear.

“Do what I say and we’ll be fine. You can always depend on your old pal Jack, huh?”

“ _Aaagg,_ ” agreed Brock.

They were going to be fine.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock and Jack return home.

The flight back to DC was uneventful. Jack had dressed Brock in his army jacket with the hood up, helped him stumble into his own sweatpants with his tail stuffed into it. There was the matter of a snout and the strange gait of Commander Rumlow, but Jack had given precise orders to the three trusted senior members of STRIKE team alpha who brought the quinjet.

No-one was going to clearly see Brock until they were underway. Jack contacted the Hydra lab while they were in the air, explaining what had happened as far as he could. Next to him in a seat was Brock, huddled in his own army jacket and oddly quiet. His tail was wagging enough to break free of the sweatpants when Arliss, the STRIKE team member who ranked after Jack in experience and therefore chain of command, sat opposite them and Jack explained what was happening.

The other two who had come to collect Jack and Brock were piloting.

Arliss was the most level-headed team member after Jack. He sat listening, casting a few glances at Commander Rumlow, who had yipped softly when Arliss sat, a twitching in the back of jacket indicating that his tail was still wagging. He then rubbed his snout lightly on Jack’s shoulder, twisted around in his seat and proceeded to look out of a small window behind them.

“Is this permanent?” asked Arliss.

“No idea,” replied Jack.

“Guess that puts you in charge, for now,” Arliss raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes towards the Commander. He sounded all too much like that was a bonus, rather than an unavoidable circumstance.

“For now,” shrugged Jack. “Until we’ve seen Dr Woodhouse,”

\-----------------------------------------

In the lab complex, back home, Jack was actually surprised at his own detached calm. He sat in a chair opposite Dr Bamber Woodhouse, and next to him sat Brock. Two SHIELD/Hydra employees having a nice little check up with a doctor. Brock was still wearing his Army hooded jacket and he was very quiet, mouth breathing gently in lupine fashion, with an inch of pink tongue casually moving in time to his breath. His eyes kept returning to a cluster of plants on top of a filing cabinet; whatever unimaginable thought processes he had now seemed absorbed in those.

Jack suspected they were a focus of reassurance as much as his own presence was.

Dr Woodhouse had lowered himself slowly into the chair on the other side of his desk, maintaining the doctor/patient dynamic as far as was possible. He had flicked a nervous glance at Brock as the Commander took up the chair next to Jack without command or suggestion from anyone.

“It’s safe,” Jack had assured him, not a little smugly. “ _He_ is safe,”

“Okay…” mouthed Woodhouse, clearly treating the presence of his patient with some caution. He sat forward, clasping his hands together in front of him, adopting the manner of learned source of rationality. It was all he had to hide behind, the role of Alpha intellectual, taking natural charge.

Well this was his clusterfuck, after all, thought Jack, he’d just better have some _answers._

Brock’s head tilted quizzically and his eyes fixed on Woodhouse as he began to speak.

"Well, Agent Rollins, I have to say your level-headedness is commendable. I am not sure where to begin with this… but following the incident a few days ago - and the events you witnessed yesterday-”

“What have you done to him?” asked Jack. “Did you know this would happen?”

“Let me finish. I have had to backtrack on some of the testing we did to ascertain er… Brock’s viability for an enhancement program. Chiefly following the incident the other day,” Woodhouse looked thoughtfully at Brock and lightly scratched the side of his neck. “There were markers, Agent Rollins, at a genetic level - the kind of thing that can indicate a predisposition to cancer, or other medical conditions - it did not appear to be of that kind of significance. It appeared to be of no significance, only the type of thing that indicates perhaps ancestry - nothing of any medical significance -”

“You mean like that thing where people trace their ancestry back to seven women in prehistoric times, with mitochondrial DNA?”

“Yes,” Woodhouse looked at Jack with a flicker of interest. “But of course it was of no immediate medical significance. Obviously I looked into it further - involved a couple of colleagues who work in that field - one of them a geneticist - after Brock’s misadventure the other day. It was the only unusual factor to go on.” Woodhouse gave both Jack and the quiet, honey-eyed wolf a reassuring look. “It would appear that the marker does relate to Brock’s ancestry, and it brought up some surprising results. You see one of my colleagues has done extensive research into the mythology of -”

“A race of ancient Etruscan wolf people, known as the Luceres tribe, as described by both Livy and Plutarch in their historical works?” butted in Jack.

Woodhouse regarded him thoughtfully, for a moment. Jack often found that useful, letting people know he was not just a ruggedly handsome, highly efficient thug with a predatory, scarred chin smile. Not just an expert marksman and demolitions expert either. Sometimes it paid to let people think that’s all he was, but not in the case of this doctor who had messed with Brock’s body autonomy potentially. Jack knew very well what this could mean for Brock, he knew all too well what happened to Hydra's ‘enhancement’ candidates when things got weird.

“Well, yes,” said Woodhouse.

“So what now?” asked Jack. “What happens to Brock?”

A slight twitch went through Woodhouse’s clasped fingers and he shot a nervous glance at Brock.

Jack was good at reading small signs of withheld information. He was trained to spot them - and when to start using various kinds of equipment to get that information.

“The question really is… how best do we proceed with the program.” said Woodhouse. “Obviously we need to study - make further tests. We need to know the extent and nature of this change, ascertain its permanence and its uses.”

“Cure, you mean,” said Jack, not bothering to keep a threat out of his tone or expression. “You mean you need to do everything you can to reverse this… effect,”

“Oh, there's no cure, Agent Rollins. This is not like something in a horror story. This is not an infection or affliction. This is something in Brock’s intrinsic make up. This lupine/human crossover state is part of Brock own genetic identity.”

“But it didn't happen to him until you messed with him,”

“The program was one of enhancement. The therapy acts on and amplifies human systems concerned with strength, speed, stamina. It was a mild super soldier program, as you must realize, Agent Rollins.

"The gene responsible for this… lycanthropy, for want of a better word, unlocks a great deal of those very attributes. The therapy found that and accessed it, triggering this latent… feature of Brock’s physical nature.The question is… how to utilize it.”

Brock blinked at the overhead light, sneezed and shrank into an awkward curled position on his chair, leaning heavily against Jack.

“There is no fucking way you are utilizing anyone,” growled Jack. “This is not what he signed up for,”

“The program involved Commander Rumlow signing an agreement to be used in a low-level super soldier program. That still stands, despite his possible lack of autonomy now. The fact is, Agent Rollins, he is the property of Hydra - as we all are.” said Woodhouse, firmly.

“You are not using him, you have done enough! I’ll go to Pierce. I'll-”

Jack trailed off to put an arm around Brock, who was wriggling in his jacket, making a soft growling sound.

“Easy boy,” murmured Jack. Jack wanted no reason for Dr Woodhouse to call in the armed guards who had remained outside the office after escorting Jack and his Commander through the lab complex. WIth an odd, yipping sound Brock seemed to scrunch up in his own jacket. The tension was clearly upsetting him.

“I need to get him to the lab!” said Woodhouse, with an urgency and a trace of relief that the subject of the conversation was proving a distraction.

“You got that right-” Jack began.

“I am not your property! I’m a fucking senior Officer…” rasped a decidedly human, New York accented voice. Both Jack and Woodhouse looked in some surprise as Brock’s familiar, olive toned face emerged from the jacket, complete with a day's designer stubble and a scowl.

“Fuck that, Woodhouse. What the fuck - the fuck have you done to me?!”

__________________________

Wearing lead aprons, Jack and Woodhouse stood to the front and back of Brock as he sat on the examination/operating table again.

“Were you listening?” asked Jack softly, looking at Brock with affection and a mixture of pride and admiration. “Did you hear all that? Just biding your time?”

Brock nodded and pressed his lips together in a rueful smile. Jack's approving expression made him dip his head shyly and look back up with an adorable little grin.

Woodhouse was fiddling with the loading and setting of a little AVID _Encrypted Friendchip_ applicator. It had been a condition of agreeing that Commander Rumlow should be allowed to stay in the care of Agent Rollins after the tests that he be microchipped. The tests had been more blood samples, a bone marrow sample taken with a great deal of bitching and curses, X-rays and an MRI scan.

None of those had done much to take the scowl off Brock’s face and it was only the approving remark from Jack just now that had lightened his mood.

He was wearing a hospital gown, a picture of sulky innocence in white cotton with a blue, geometric flecked pattern. The gown had left nothing to the imagination, flapping open at the back when he got on the table.

“What was it like?” asked Jack. “Do you remember?”

“It was like… simple, no stress. It was kinda nice.” said Brock, candidly. He tilted his head in a quizzical-wolf manner - Jack wondered how he had never thought how that high-cheekboned, pointy little face had always had a wolfish look to it. How had he missed that? Well - why the fuck would he have thought of it until now?

“You were there the whole time, Jack. It made sense. It was like...floating…”

Jack swallowed. Floating… that was the answer Brock gave him years ago. Back in the earliest days, when they finally got to spend a whole two days by themselves, at Brock’s apartment. Jack had asked Brock, lying face to face in the dark, what it was that Brock felt about what he had just let Jack do to him - it was incomprehensible to Jack, that someone would like being on the receiving end of the things Jack liked to do.

“Floating,” Brock had replied, languidly, fucked out and blissful sounding.

Interesting and possibly the key to the total control Jack had had over a creature of myth, when that creature was Brock. Just as well , of course.

“Hold still,” said Woodhouse, coming right up behind Brock and feeling with fingers down from his neck and across his shoulder blade. _Left dorsal midline…_

Brock gasped a little and his spine straightened as the microchip went into his muscle. A little thing, like a grain of rice, but a sharp intrusive sting.

“There! All done! Now we’ll be able to keep track of you in case - well you know,” Dr Woodhouse gave an apologetic shrug like it was all most unfortunate but ‘We’re all pals here’.

“I can control it,” said Brock, sullenly. “I could change right back right now, if I wanted.”

“Care to demonstrate?” asked Woodhouse, not entirely joking.

“I’m not a performing fucking seal,”

“Indeed.” Dr Woodhouse patted his shoulder briskly and Brock shrugged him off, sliding off the table.

“Can I go now?” he asked.

\-----------------------------------------

On the way out, Woodhouse had handed Jack a small package of leaflets, a brochure and a letter of an arranged appointment time, tomorrow afternoon.

“Got you a slot at the attack dog center,” he said. “Training session.”

Jack looked at it disdainfully. “I have a certificate for that already,”

“It’s non-negotiable,” said Woodhouse.

Jack sneered at him and snatched the package. Brock gave him a resentful glare and trailed out after Jack, hands deep in his pockets and his hood up, clearly a sign of not feeling right at home in his own skin right now.

What were either of them anyway, in essentials, but Hydra’s attack dogs, highly trained and fine tuned to obey?

\----------------------------------------

Brock sat slouched in the passenger seat as Jack drove them back to his house. He had opened the package and was reading the brochure. He had already held up a leaflet with a picture of a good-natured looking German Shepherd wearing a sturdy cross-harness, a reinforced leash in the hands of a happily grinning, capable looking serviceman of some kind.

“Yeah, that’s us,” muttered Jack, with bitter humor. “You’ve even had the fucking harness for years,”

Brock smiled very slightly and started flicking through the brochure. He reached out and turned on the radio, finding the channel he knew played 1990s classics.

Jack focussed on the road, the traffic getting easier as they reached the suburbs. For once he did not change the channel, but squared his shoulders at the wheel and absorbed the frivolous beats of 1996.

Ahead, there was a sign for the strip unit he used for various supplies. They would need coffee, milk... _raw steaks?._

“Just gonna make a quick stop,” murmured Jack. “Supplies,”

Brock grunted. “Okay. I’ll wait here in the car,”

Jack’s eye caught the _‘Pups and Pals_ ’ shop front of the pet store he had passed a million times without once entering. He found a space for the car and parked.

Without another word, he firmly took the brochure out of Brock’s hands and opened the door on his own side. Taking Brock by the arm, he tugged him insistently.

“Come on, you need to come with me,” he said.

Brock tutted and pulled back. “I’m tired,” he protested.

“I have to keep an eye on you.” Jack tugged his arm harder. “Out! You are coming with me. I’m gonna get you something,”

Brock huffed and climbed over the transmission, over the driver's seat and stood next to Jack while the taller man shut the car door. He did not try to wriggle out of the grip on his arm as Jack pulled him towards the pet store.

“What’s this?” asked Brock, looking at the life size, plastic ‘cut-out’ style orange dog and blue cat outside the pet store, both with cartoonish painted anthropomorphic smiles. “I thought we were getting supplies, or supper -” Jack was pulling him towards the door.

“We are,”

“In here? Fuck that Jack, I’m not eating fucking dog food!” snapped Brock.

Jack gave a distinctly _mean_ sounding chuckle and hustled Brock into the store. Next to the door and therefore visible through the front window was a large, caged off area in which several small puppies of indeterminate breed were playing with balls and toys, two wrestling happily.

“Are we getting a puppy?” asked Brock. It was a reflexive thing to say, he and Jack had discussed that in the past, Brock having a memory of a small dog of his grandmother’s - a real one, not the one in the photograph - and a vague idea it represented something to do with home.

They had both rationally decided pets were not a good idea, considering their unsocial and unpredictable work patterns.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” snorted Jack. He did not get to add that he, at least, already had one, because both his and Brock’s attention was taken by the sudden strange behavior of the puppies. Every one, to a pup, stopped what they were doing, stared at Brock and their little hackles rose. Two of them bared their needle-sharp puppy teeth, all of them flattened their ears and they began to back away, to the farthest corner of their enclosure, away from Brock.

There was a whimpering and a yip or two as they huddled, en masse, the bravest two snarling.

Brock stared right back at them. Part of him had an urge to get right in there and - _and Jesus fucking Christ, shut the miserable runts up_ \- part of him was strangely… _hurt?_ Wanted to show them it was okay…

Jack swallowed, took a deep breath in through his nose and pulled Brock away, putting two rows of store display between them and the frightened puppies.

“Can’t fucking take you anywhere,” he muttered, almost automatically.

Near the counter, he allowed Brock to yank his arm back out of Jack’s grasp with a huff and move sullenly away to examine a wall display of books on pet care. As if Brock ever had his nose in a book unless it was an instruction manual for new weapons or Jack had chewed his ear off about it for months.

Jack got the attention of a counter assistant and began discussing the possibility of getting something ‘custom made’. Brock was listening. His hearing was sharp, he could still hear the little whimpers and scuffles from the front display. Moving further along the wall, he brushed past a cage containing a bird, a large, white cockatoo with a yellow blush of facial markings.

“ _See something! Get you something!”_ squawked the bird, its crest rising in a way that rivalled Brock’s best hair days. It sidled along its perch as far away from Brock as it could get, spread its wings as far as the cage allowed and hissed at Brock. “ _GET YOU! SOMETHING!”_ it screeched, the essentially meaningless customer service-related phrase at odds with the defensive-aggressive tone of its voice.

“Shut the fuck up, asshole” hissed Brock, with a childishly redundant tone of irritation at an instinctual animal following its instincts. Instinct being to react in these ways to the monstrous predator these animals could sense within the now normal-looking man.

“Brock! Get over here,” said Jack, firmly, snapping his fingers and pointing sharply at the space on the floor next to him, to order Brock to come and occupy it.

Brock opened his mouth and for a moment he realized that he was going to say ‘But -” but what, the parrot started it?

Brock walked over to Jack at the counter, glancing with disinterest at the young man Jack was talking to and giving Jack a slight glare. Jack surprised him by rubbing his knuckles lightly on Brock’s upper arm in a gesture of casual reassurance. It always surprised Brock just how much a gesture and a light touch like that from Jack really did reassure him - even though it always did and it always had.

“So, how long do you think it would take?” Jack asked the man at the counter.

“Three days, usually.” he looked at a notepad that he had scribbled some numbers on. “That's quite a chest measurement. What breed are we talking here?”

“Lucani hound, from Italy,” said Jack and Brock looked at him sharply. He noticed now that there was a large, steel, dog feeding bowl, a smaller, blue ceramic bowl with white dog paw-print patterns on it and a packet of dried meat dog chews on the counter in front of Jack.

“Yeah, they can get quite big, but -”

“He is big. Slight endocrine disorder, the veterinarian says. Stocky round the chest. Funny though, he was quite a small pup, always real small - but he bulked up overnight, almost,” Jack grinned at Brock.

Brock shook his head and huffed softly, his fingers straying to a selection of dog tags - literal tags for dog collars - hanging on a display on the counter. He stroked his fingertip over the cool, smooth metal of a bone-shaped one, trying to look casual and block out the knowledge Jack was pre-ordering some kind of dog paraphernalia - for him. For what he could become now.

“Can I get one of those?” asked Jack. “You think that one, huh?" Jack reached over and took the bone shaped tag off its hook, past Brock.

Brock shrugged. To be honest he was half wondering now if this was some kind of dream, he had been having some weird dreams lately after all. He had the strange knowledge that he had been different and it had not been that… odd for him, not as weird as it should have been. The fact that Jack had dragged him into a pet store and was buying dog things for him - well did somebody say his life these days?

“Do you want that engraved? His name, address, insurance details?” asked the young man.

“Sure… and I guess we’ll need the collar for it to go on,” Jack darted over to his left and picked up a dog collar. Thick, black leather with big studs around it - well of course he had to pick that. He held it out to Brock with a scarred chin smile, like a mischievous barracuda.

“Can’t wait to see that on him,” said Jack.

Brock opened his mouth to remark how it looked like something a gay middle aged biker would choose for his chihuahua, realized that made him the chihuahua and snorted. If it looked like anything, in fact, it looked like some kind of bondage gear - and looking up at Jack Brock realized that was exactly what he was thinking too.

“Me either,” murmured Brock, and looked at his feet.

Jack chuckled and put the collar on the counter with the rest of the things.

“I think that’s it. I’ll take all of this - and I've got the address and insurance number here. The name is 'Brock', B.R.O.C.K..” Jack took a blank card out of his wallet, on which he had written Brock's SHIELD registration number. 

The young man took the particulars and entered them on a terminal on the cash register. He took the tag and said for them to come back in ten minutes. Jack took the rest of the supplies in a paper bag and nudged Brock towards the door.

“Want one of your chews now?” he asked, mischievously. “Or we can get a packet of Milk Bones when we come back.”

“I want pizza,” replied Brock. “When we get home. Pizza and a fuck,”

Jack laughed loudly and the cockatoo hissed again as they passed. “If you’re a good boy and try on your new collar,” he whispered in Brock’s ear.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puppy play!

“I could use a shower....”

Brock ran his hands through his now floppy, stale-Axed hair and stretched his spine in Jack’s living room. Jack came through behind him, carrying their supplies and pet store purchases. He automatically did an eye roll at Brock's Army jacket being carelessly flung over his armchair, but he let it slide.

“Okay,” he said, neutrally, heading straight for the kitchen.

Brock’s arms flopped to his sides and he trailed after Jack, rather than heading for the shower upstairs.

“You sure you don't wanna use it first?” asked Brock. Jack invariably used the hot water before Brock, in order to actually get some. “Or - you could join me?” That was the other solution.

“Things to do,” Jack started getting the food out of the grocery bag; it was mainly for supper.

Brock shrugged and headed back through the house to go upstairs.

Jack turned his attention to the other items they had bought, from the pet store. He took out the collar, to which the bone-shaped tag had been added after being engraved with Jack's home address and Brock’s SHIELD registration number - supposedly his pet insurance number. On the other side the tag was engraved in capitals:

_**BROCK** _

Jack smiled and ran his thumb over the letters.

\-----------------------------------

Brock returned wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. He had re-styled his hair, hurriedly, after the shower. The transformation which had caused his whole skeleton to change structure - had changed his whole physical being at a molecular level - had caused his body hair to grow into fur. Equally, if not more extraordinary, that fur had retracted on changing back, reverted to being human body hair. It was still more than Brock liked having and he had shaved it, relieved that it was not as tough as it had been a couple of days ago. As is everything had found a balance.

He had watched the shaved, dark shafts washing away down the shower drain with a sense of having been cleansed.

On the kitchen table now a _Pups & Pals_ paper bag was on its side, with their pet store purchases suspiciously artfully spilling out. There were the chews, a blue, textured dog ball with small projections for puppy-chewing fun and the collar. Next to these was the latest edition of Jack’s _Rider Magazine_  for motorcycle enthusiasts.

The collar took Brock’s attention the most. It was lying unfastened, in a seemingly casual strip, like a miniature belt.

Brock picked it up, examining the the studs and Jack appeared from the downstairs bathroom, which was in back of the kitchen. He smelled soapy and his black STRIKE uniform shirt was fully unfastened at the chest.

“You wanna try it?” asked Jack, moving in a slow, contemplative circle around the table and coming to stand behind Brock.

Brock shrugged. He kind of did want to try the collar on, but… there was always a ‘but’ springing to mind; anything that Jack suggested while moving up behind Brock like he was now carried connotations. Brock’s fragile masculinity had conditioned him to argue years ago. Jack had, however, conditioned him to at least listen.

“You need to get used to it,” said Jack, reasonably.

Brock licked the corner of his mouth. The collar was stiff, new leather - like some of Jack’s more expensive belts, thought Brock with a delicious little shiver. He could smell the new leather and feel the velvety soft underside, designed to fit comfortably around a dog’s neck.

“Wanna try it, huh?” Jack’s voice was soft and encouraging. His arm reached out carefully alongside of Brock, tawny forearm hairs brushing part Brock’s ribs in passing. Jack picked up the collar and his other arm slid around the other side of Brock to encircle him.

Taking an end in each hand, he slowly brought the collar up to Brock’s throat.

“It’s got your name and my address on it,” murmured Jack, in his best honey-smooth, irresistible to Brock voice. “Know what that means?”

Brock shook his head, slowly.

Jack fastened the collar around his neck, not too tight, considerately, with a hint of reverence, in fact - then pushed three fingers through it and closed his hand around it in an abrupt, firm grip. He yanked Brock back an inch, Brock’s head and shoulders yielding at once to the ghost of a choke hold.

Jack leaned in and his lips brushed the shell of Brock’s ear.

“My house. Your name. Means you’re _mine_... _Got that_?”

“Shut the fuck up, Rollins,” said Brock, hoarsely and with no particular enthusiasm.

Jack chuckled, softly. His left hand brushed down Brock’s side, yanked the towel off him and returned to stroke more firmly over his lower belly in a way that had goosebumps blossoming all over his skin.

“Mmmm… you waxed again?”

“Shaved,”

“Good job, nice and smooth.” Jack’s left pinky finger deliberately stroked over the base of Brock’s dick. His other hand moved to idly roll the nearest nipple between thumb and forefinger.

“So, what we need to do now, is talk about how we’re gonna deal with this training situation…” Jack was speaking slowly, dragging out this interlude. Brock was relaxed and sinking into a haze of peaceful pleasure.

“Attack dog management requires control. Self-control on the part of the handler. Unwavering control over the dog. I need to brush up on this stuff for tomorrow.”

Jack’s nose nuzzled softly over the slightly uneven buzzcut Brock had applied to the back of his head.

“So… put your hands on the table,” said Jack,more firmly, moving back abruptly, breaking all the delicious contact before snapping his hands around Brock’s wrists and nudging him with his body.

Brock blinked out of his pleasant torpor and reacted by moving with Jack’s forward pressure. He reached down for the table top. This was not wholly unfamiliar a scenario, being required to lean over a surface like this, and he had done this for Jack in particular more times in his life than for anyone else.

Jack nudged Brock's bare heels with a booted foot. “Feet apart, bend, bend over more,” he prompted, manoeuvring him into a bent over position with his hands on the table, body clear of it.

“Now, we’re going to test out the types of control I mentioned. With a ‘dog’ like you, there’s a need to address _your_  self-control as much as mine. You’re sharper than the average puppy, huh?” Jack reached around and began to squeeze and stroke Brock's dick. Brock closed his eyes blissfully, back arching involuntarily.

“We know you like that,” remarked Jack. “Good boy likes that.... That’s what a good puppy gets,”

Brock was hard already, Jack’s fingers tracing over his cockhead and gathering the pre-cum, rhythmically stroking it back up and over his cock, using it to slide deliciously.

“Now, let’s really see how good of a puppy you can be,” said Jack, his voice a mixture of bright encouragement and dark intent. He stepped away abruptly again.

Brock frowned and made a disappointed whining sound - so much like the puppy Jack kept alluding to. The whine went straight into a startled yelp before it died in his throat as Jack out three fingers back under his collar and yanked him upright.

A head taller than Brock, Jack leaned down into his face as though addressing the average dog from on high. Asserting his superiority - nothing new there, nothing usual about any of this if Brock was being honest. But he thought again of the circumstances, the reason Jack was going to attack dog refresher training tomorrow and … it just felt _right_. It fit.

“Sit,” said Jack. It was a firm, quiet command.

Brock dropped to the floor obediently, with a fluid, knee bending movement. He sat, or prepared to sit at any rate -

“Not like that.” snapped Jack. “What the fuck kind of dog sits like that?”

Brock immediately realized his mistake. Dogs don’t sit cross-legged - maybe werewolves could, but Jack was talking about regular attack dogs. He knew what Jack wanted, it was part of his nature to order his body to comply - but it was not in his present physical structure to execute it easily.

He braced himself with his hands in front of him and bent his legs up; his ass did not reach the floor. It was not a ‘sit’, it was more like a ‘squat’. He felt more like a frog than a dog.

Jack adopted a look of what was supposed to convey serious contemplation. “Guess you’d better kneel,” he said, gravely.

Brock adjusted himself into a kneeling position. From that he was face to crotch with Jack.

“Good boy,” commented Jack, generously. Brock darted a look up at Jack’s face, and assured of approval for his kneeling, reached out to unfasten Jack’s pants. That was usually what kneeling meant.

“No!” snapped Jack.

Brock looked up again in confusion.

“But-”

“NO!”

“I-thought-it-was-time-”

“Quiet!” Jack snatched up his _Rider Magazine_  from the table and started rolling it up like a scroll, rather theatrically.

“What kind of puppy talks back like that?” Jack tapped Brock’s cheekbone lightly with the rolled magazine. “What puppy thinks he can do his own sweet thing, when he decides to? Did I say for you to do anything, other than ‘sit’?”

“No, b-”

Jack grabbed Brock under the armpits, pushed him forward and gave his bare ass four resounding smacks with the rolled up magazine. It was not quite like a belt, but Brock was surprised enough and stung enough to _yelp._

“Now,” Jack stepped back. “Stand up,”

Brock, achingly hard now, stood.

“Sit,” said Jack,

Brock dropped back into his kneeling approximation of a dog-sit, hands on the floor between his knees. He even curled his hands into a suitably paw-like form.

“Good,” said Jack. “Real good,” He unfastened his pants and shrugged them down to his hips. “I think this puppy deserves a bone…” he added.

Brock looked up into that so-familiar face, its angular planes roughened with time and the effects of serious facial injuries from a few years ago. It was still the same face he had been so fascinated with when he first saw it. The welcome smile of approval now disguised the years and the wear and tear.

It felt so _right_  to Brock that under these weird circumstances, Jack should be be there to guide him and manage him as always.

“You want this, pup?” asked Jack giving his own cock a couple of tugs and gesturing to it with his head. “You gonna ask nicely, like a good puppy? Beg?”

Brock opened his mouth to say maybe “Fuck you,” automatically, more likely “Yes, please,” in all honesty and caught himself in time. Of course he knew what to do.

He straightened his spine, curled his ‘paws’ and raised them with his forearms together in a puppy-supplicating pose. He managed to make an appealing tilt of his head seem natural and not shameless counter-manipulation. It was a nice touch, anyhow - Jack seemed to think so, that was for sure.

“Okay… all yours…” said Jack, affectionately.

Brock inched closer on his knees, reaching for Jack's cock, holding it delicately between paw-like fists.

He licked at Jack’s cockhead, delicately, turning his head to cover its curves as if he had a snout to manoeuvre. It became more and more natural to him as he licked up the shaft, to negotiate this familiar dick as if it were really a stripped bone and he was licking the last of the meat traces away.

His nose brushed tawny curls as he reached the base of Jack’s cock in a right-sided approach and at once... _He was by the river, with the wind in the reeds. His tawny-furred companion sighed contentedly._

“Jesus… oh god...fucking adorable,” gasped Jack.

Brock took Jack’s cock in his mouth, it felt like he had a longer jaw and could take it all the way. Everything seemed right, and natural. In reality, his neck aligned with his spine to take the dick to his soft palate. It gave him a more canine/lupine looking posture, When Jack began thrusting gently into his face and those big fingers were stroking through his hair - petting him - Brock pawed at Jack’s hips in excitement.

The taste of Jack was like bitter honey in his mouth, like the tastiest bone. This was where Brock liked to be a lot of the time, and now it felt even more _right_...

Jack came with a loud groan, relaxing,softening, pulling out of Brock's face. Brock pawed at him, aware that he was himself dripping on the kitchen floor - _rolled up magazine?_ \- and desperate for a reward.

Jack sank to his knees, gesturing feebly for Brock to come to him, come with him.

Brock pushed eagerly at Jack to get him down even as Jack slumped on his back, chuckling softly. Brock clambered up and along his body, until he could bury his face in Jack’s neck, nuzzling and _smelling_  Jack.

Jack smelled of something good. It was more than soap, or his fabric softener, although they themselves spread through Brock's newly super-sensitive olfactory system like a burst of sandalwood and summer meadows. There was also a deeper scent, an _under-smell_  and it was just ‘Jack’.

Brock realized it had always been there, but it was only now, even in his human form, he could really isolate it.

He knew it meant he could identify Jack in a crowd, smell him from afar, track him to the ends of the earth…

He nipped at the skin of Jack’s throat, oh so gently. He licked Jack’s ear. He was grinding his groin into Jack’s upper thigh all the while, his hips pumping, his ass bobbing.

Just like a puppy.

He came over Jack's black uniform pants and thigh with a yelping cry and buried his face in the hollow of Jack’s shoulder.

They lay there, Brock’s hips twitching in aftershocks with Jack's slowing breath stirring his hair.

“Thought… thought for a moment. Thought you were gonna, you know, turn,” said Jack,at length, panting slightly.

“Do something like that again and I might,” grinned Brock.

“Might have to use the restraints on you next time,” mused Jack. “Just in case,”

“Yes. Yes, you might,” sighed Brock, in a haze of contentment.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock and Jack are under some kind of unwelcome scrutiny. Brock is determined not to let the recent 'personal developments' get to him, however.  
> More importantly, he is not going to let them get to Jack.

_The clearing was always private, deep in the forest where the stone dwellers would not venture. The stream flowed from half a mile away to the north, from the waterfall visible above the trees. The water was fast and clear, babbling like laughter, and the wind in the reeds always sang._

_The sunshine warmed away the dampness from the steam's spray and the tawny furred one stroked away his cares. There were big hands in the fur behind his ears, while he rested his head in that tawny lap and gave a snorting sigh of contentment._

_Sometimes the tawny one would play music for him, with a set of pipes fashioned from the reeds. He would doze, his eyes only opening now and then to the splash of a fish or a water bird, or to the shining flicker of a dragonfly, and he always felt safe like this._

_Once, however, there was a flash of silver and the smell of stone dwellers, off in the trees._

_“Someone’s watching…” he murmured. “Someone is watching us…”*_

 

Brock roused, twitching, in Jack’s bed, chills running over his skin as the hairs stood up all over his limbs. The sensation crawled up his spine until his hackles rose. It was his own low, warning growl of fear that brought him fully awake.

The window was open a little, letting in a gentle spring breeze. It was warm, carrying mainly a scent of sycamore and petrol, but a familiar, more human scent within.

Brock wriggled out of the reassuring restraint of a long arm over his ribs and slid off the bed, hands first, then knees and crawled to the window. There was light from the street lamps, fewer and more widely spaced than those of the city and Brock could see the street. A car was parked just outside Jack’s driveway, and a figure was standing next to it, on the opposite, driver's side of the car and looking over the car’s roof right at Jack's house.

A small glint of light from one of the street lamps on something in the man’s raised hand told Brock the house was being filmed. The man was probably using a phone - he was certainly no kind of spy, or anyone particularly trained in surveillance. Another gust of breeze brought the scent again. More alert now, Brock recognized it.

Jack was capable of silent stealth and a significant diminishing of his large frame and long limbs. Brock was aware of movement near him and noted two breaths being taken before Jack was on hands and knees beside him.

“Woodhouse,” Brock informed him, under his breath. “He’s watching,”

Without a word, Jack was off to the side, low to the ground and reaching into a bag of his near the bed. He returned with a tiny SHIELD-issued spy camera that used infrared. He handed it to Brock silently and Brock held it up in the window, squinting at a tiny image of Woodhouse filming the house and recording it.

“We’ll get the team onto this?” murmured Jack.

Brock knew he meant get the STRIKE team onto an immediate counter-surveillance of Woodhouse and potentially anyone associated with his lab. It would not be the first time STRIKE had done something like that, for their own reasons.

Brock nodded, and stopped the little camera filming as Woodhouse put his phone down outside, starting to get back into his car.

Jack rubbed the back of Brock’s neck with this knuckles and reached to take the little spy camera from him.

“Let's get some sleep,”

He patted Brock on the shoulder, indicating the bed with his head and stood up. Brock had handed him the camera and Jack placed it carefully on the bedside locker with Brock’s phone. Brock followed Jack to the bed, flopping down beside him.

“Why is he doing that?” wondered Brock out loud, as Jack put an arm over him and pulled him closer in a spooning position, to nestle and settle them for a few hours’ sleep. Jack grunted in response.

“We’ll figure it out,” said Jack. “Let’s get some sleep,” his hand was on Brock’s belly, and gave it a couple of soothing strokes.

Brock’s hand drifted down to join Jack’s and push it insistently lower.

“Sleep,” said Jack, softly.

Brock pushed Jack’s hand again. “Handjob,” he insisted.

Jack sighed. “I think sleep. WE don’t wanna get all… excited,”

“Why not? What d’you mean?” Brock pushed his ass gently back into Jack’s groin and lower belly, feeling the soft, tawny hairs of his dreams on his asscheeks. He shifted his hips from side to side, getting a stroking movement going, brushing Jack’s cock with his ass – which immediately had the usual effect.  
“Brock… come on, what if you – what if you get all stimulated?” objected Jack.

Brock snorted. “That’s the idea… “He found Jack’s hand was putting up less resistance with the distraction and guided it firmly over his own dick, stroking the long fingers and shifting his ass so that the cleft was snuggled over Jack’s nicely firming erection.

“I’m not gonna turn into a dog right now,” said Brock. “That was before, before this thing took hold. I just wanna fuck,”

“You’ll get what you’re given,” growled Jack, pushing himself firmly into Brock’s asscrack and starting to squeeze and grope at Brock’s dick.

Brock whined in slight disappointment. He had always made sounds like that in these situations and Jack had always liked them. They made him act meaner in ways Brock liked, made him nip and tweak and suck hickeys that Brock was in two minds about. Part badge of honor, part shameful reminder of everything Brock tried to hide from the world about himself.

Well he had bigger secrets now. He still had Jack though.

Jack got him off beautifully; just grinding against Jack’s crotch with his ass could have done it. But even with the handjob, Brock wanted more. After Jack had left a warm wet mess against Brock’s lower back and Brock had come on both his own and Jack’s hand, Jack had made a soft sighing sound and fallen straight to sleep.

There was little middle ground with Jack and sleep. Brock, however, stayed awake for a further ten minutes, thinking about Woodhouse and realizing that Jack had not fucked him since that evening on an Eastern European hillside before he turned. Jack was worried about him changing during sex.

Brock needed to demonstrate more that Jack need not worry.

He idly wiggled his left foot over Jack’s. Finding long, blunt-nailed toes, Brock stroked the sole and ball of his foot over them. They provided a tingling, soothing pleasure, deeper and sweeter when he curled his foot more.

It wasn’t a fuck, but it was the most reassuring form of self-soothing Brock was going to get right now with Jack breathing deep and even behind him.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

The attack dog training center was a SHIELD facility, which was used by the local police department and a nearby Army base by regular arrangement. It was not far from where Jack lived, still in the suburbs, but its grounds backed onto woodland and from there, countryside. A big, open field with obstacle courses for dogs took up a lot of the site.

The entrance had parking, a reception center complex with classroom facilities and behind that were kennels for the SHIELD dogs. Both Brock and Jack had completed attack dog handling courses and refreshers in the past; they were fully trained in many aspects of enforcement work.

Jack reported to the reception with Brock very much in tow. Both felt it was overall advantageous that Brock attend this training, and both agreed that Brock staying at home was probably not a good idea, with the proviso that Jack was to supervise Brock and the matter of Woodhouse spying on the house, they wanted to stick together. However, once they arrived and it was Jack who had the appointment, Jack who was here with a purpose, Brock felt redundant.

He followed Jack and a trainer out of the building and into the kennels area, hands in pockets. He was wearing a hoodie, with the hood up, uncomfortable in his own skin again. It was how he dressed on bad hair days and those times after injuries when he could not work out or train for a few day, feeling like a complete slob. He was hyper aware of this all being something connected to him, but out of his control. It was Jack who was tasked with refreshing his dog-handling skills, Jack who had a proactive mission and Brock was just tagging along.

Inevitably, passing the kennels, Brock sensed immediate unease among the inhabitants of the spacious caged dog housing. It was irritating, and the barks, snarls and whimpers agitated him in return. Their disquiet was transferred to him, though he knew he was the actual cause of it in his everyday mind, the deep instinctual part of him picked up the fear.

“Shut the fuck up,” he muttered, as a large Rottweiler stood up, paws on the mesh of its enclosure, barking, teeth bared. Brock made an instinctive, slightly childish lunge at the cage.

“Shut up!”

“BOOFF!!”

“Fuck you!”

“Rumlow!” hissed Jack, sharply.

Brock knew he could show the caged dog who was in charge around here… but in fact he didn’t want too. Every time he went near a dog, or cat, he was going to run a gauntlet of terrified barking, hissing and snarls. He remembered the squirrels in the trees in the valley, near that safehouse, the evening he first changed.

Chittering, accusing him of something he had not done – something he just represented by an accident of genetic heredity and the oversight of Dr fucking Woodhouse. He was descended from some ancient wolf-people, but he had lived forty years as a regular man. He had never particularly disliked animals. He had liked dogs, and cats.

How the hell was he supposed to live normally in a world where people had pets – what the fuck would happen if – for what reason he could not imagine - he went to the zoo?

“Brock, come on,” said Jack insistently, as Brock approached the kennel, breathing in through his nose, hands hanging limp, inclining his head and giving a soft yip at the snarling dog.

“BOOOF!”

“It’s okay… we’re all friends here, hmmm?” said Brock, softly.

The Rottweiler literally stood down, going back onto all four paws and pressing its nose up against the mesh. It was sniffing Brock, who reached out slowly.

“Be careful,” warned the trainer.

“…Brock,” murmured Jack.

Brock’s fingers passed through the mesh and rubbed lightly on the big dog’s blunt nose. The Rottweiler’s tail started to wag.

Brock squatted down to be more at an eye level with the dog and turned his head to Jack with a happy smile.

“Go on,” he said. “Start your session. I’ll join you,”

“We’ll need to get you a dog,” said the trainer.

“Sure,” said Jack, still looking uncertainly at Brock.

“I’ll join you,” repeated Brock.

“He has a talent with dogs, your friend,” remarked the trainer.

“Like you’d never imagine,” agreed Jack, solemnly, as they went to pick a dog for the lesson.

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

Ten minutes later, Jack was on the training field with a sleek, efficiently obedient German Shepherd. Attentive to simple instructions so far, the dog was relaxed enough to respond to Jack and carried out basic commands for him with precision.

Jack had done this before. He liked dogs well enough, having had a dog as a boy. Already thoroughly trained, these kind of working dogs knew what was expected of them and complied. Jack had never experienced a problem with a dog and acted like he had no reason not to think a dog would obey. That gave the dogs the reassurance of a competent pack leader, he guessed, having read some of the theory behind dog handling.

He wondered if actually trying any of this with Brock-wolf was going to be as straightforward or only going to work because of their existing relationship and Brock’s co-operation from higher mental processes. Brock-wolf was easier to manage than regular Brock, unless there was sex involved, but was this really translatable to the ‘attack dog’ Jack was really expected to handle?

His questions were answered unexpectedly soon, to the sound of panting breath and heavily pounding paws.

The trainer froze and the German Shepherd stopped jumping through a set of hoops and cowered on the grass.

Brock-wolf was running towards Jack across the field, in the most quadrupedal version of his wolf posture. Jack reached out towards the German Shepherd, soothing with his hands, and called out.

“It’s okay….!” to the trainer.

Brock-wolf sat in front of Jack, looking up at him from his best puppy sit position, golden eyes sparkling and a decidedly grin-like appearance about the set of his wolf jaw.

“What…?” the trainer moved over to the German Shepherd and took its collar to both reassure it and prevent it challenging the bizarre new arrival.

“This is my dog,” said Jack, brightly, thinking on his feet. “Ah… Brock must have sent him over - must’ve misunderstood - I was gonna ask if I could try my own dog, sometime - he'll be coming on missions with me,” Jack reached down and noticed that Brock-wolf was wearing his collar, the one with his name on the bone-shaped tag. He slid three fingers under it and pulled the wolf closer, half-joking, half sternly.

“Brock should have warned me, sorry,” Jack shook his head meaningfully at the big 'dog'.

The German Shepherd, who had taken to Jack very well, and was reassured by the regular trainer’s proximity, relaxed a little when it seemed the new, bigger dog was not acting like any kind of threat.

“But hey, this is Pookie, my dog,” Jack announced.

“What breed… is that?” asked the trainer.

“Lucani hound,”

“Ah… yes - handsome guy, distinctive cheekbones,” the trainer seemed reassured too.

“Well, we might as well put him through his paces, if that’s okay?” Jack smiled brightly. “I think we've got a lot of training to get through,”


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dog handling lesson for Jack.

Mike, the SHIELD dog handling instructor, was trying to remain professional and talk Jack through the attack dogs’ obstacle course. He had been holding on tight to the collar of Maxi the German Shepherd, fingers stroking through soft fur on the scruff of his neck until just a few moments ago. That had been the point when the SHIELD dog had seemed to finally be reassured about the presence of Agent Rollins’s large, slightly oddly proportioned dog, Pookie.

Pookie was certainly well cared for looking, with a shiny black coat. He was a handsome guy, with intelligent golden eyes and unusual furry tufts on the tips of his ears. A few flecks of grey at his muzzle indicated a more than fully grown animal, but he was muscular and right now he seemed full of bounding energy, as lively as a pup. Jack had mentioned something about an ‘endocrine disorder’, explaining Pookie’s large size as he was no doubt used to doing, Mike wondered about some other congenital condition to explain the strange shape and look of the dog – but it was clearly not important. This was a healthy animal and very playful too.

Maxi was wagging his tail enthusiastically, as Pookie stood facing him, forepaws planted firmly on the ground, hindquarters switching slightly from the force of his own wagging tail. Pookie yipped excitedly; clearly he wanted to play with his new friend.

Agent Rollins, to his credit, spoke firmly.

“Hey, Pookie! We’re here to work. Pay attention!”

The big dog looked at his owner sharply, then flattened his ears, lowered his upper body for a second, then rose again, much more still.

It seemed Agent Rollins had a large degree of control and leadership over the animal. It was probably just as well, having that kind of dominance, as he had also explained that Pookie lived with him in his house – which was a common enough practice among handlers and their personal service dog, though it had sounded as if Pookie was a household pet to a large extent. Pookie was certainly the largest example of a Lucani hound Mike had ever seen. They were a rare breed and not often used as attack dogs in most services, though Mike knew they were still used as hunting dogs in parts of Tuscany. The pictures he had seen of them were more like huge versions of Maxi, not quite like this one in build.

“So, let’s hit the course,” said Mike, sticking to the agenda. “I’ll send Maxi first and you can let Pookie follow,”

Jack took Pookie’s collar and murmured something under his breath to him. It sounded like he was literally explaining the situation to his dog, which was something Mike generally trained dog handlers to avoid. Short, simple commands – dogs couldn’t understand more detail after all. But it seemed to be what Jack did – perhaps the constant speaking and attention was what Pookie was used to and responded to best.

Mike set Maxi off on the course. It consisted of several plastic posts, around which Maxi made a zigzagging progress at a run. After this came a small trench for him to leap, followed by a long, convoluted tube reinforced with rings, into which man made tunnel Maxi darted.

Jack grunted and Mike glanced at him. The moment there where Maxi’s actions had become more interesting to Pookie than awaiting commands was missed as Pookie dashed away in a heavy, pounding run. Jack looked as if nothing had happened.

Pookie in his four legged gait was an unusual looking dog indeed. In this state Brock was of course an anatomical blend of half-lupine-half-human. He had the speed and agility of a wolf, and of a highly trained human also showing the effects of the moderate enhancement serum he had received recently.

He was also seemingly tremendously excited at the activity, at the participation of Maxi in particular. It was as if he was suddenly bursting with the need to play with one of his own kind, to abandon himself to physical fun in the ways of his dog and wolf ancestors. This was both half-true and completely true in equal measure, though Mike did not know that. All he thought at first was that Pookie was incredibly fast and it was kind of cute how well he was responding to Maxi. In fact of course it was a good technique, letting the dogs copy more experienced dogs like Maxi, while developing the handler’s skills in keeping control over proceedings.

Primal urges to chase and run with the other four legged creature had indeed taken over ‘Pookie’ completely. It made him forget how much bigger and heavier he was than the usual dogs that used the course. How his long hind legs, humanoid in proportions and in angle to his hips and spine, though lupine in form, gave him a different gait than Maxi. It meant several of the posts were scattered as he weaved through them, far clumsier in his shape and skittishness than the German Shepherd.

He passed over the trench within his own stride, barely needing to make any jumping motions, and disappeared into the tube after Maxi. A few feet in, he seemed to get stuck, and kicking hind legs and tail thrashed at the entrance and a hidden wriggling mass bulged further in.

“ _Uggh! UUK_!” he exclaimed, his odd growling voice muffled. He punched and twisted and clawed at the inside of the tube.

Maxi paused at the other end, yipping agitatedly into the tube, encouraging him. Pookie seemed to gather the sense to adopt a straighter, more snakelike posture and clawed along the tube in a side to side motion.  
Maxi wagged his tail and set off to stand by the next stage of the course. Pookie scrabbled again at the exit, urgently wanting to get out and join the other dog; a huge clawed fist punched its way through the top of the ribbed plastic tunnel, there was a further scrabbling and Pookie was out.

Jack rolled his eyes a little.

Maxi started leaping over a series of hurdles designed for agile dogs of his size. Pookie barrelled at them, oddly upright at first, like a human hurdler, then on all fours. His hind legs clipped a hurdle, tripped him, and sent him crashing onto the two ahead. The hurdles snapped and collapsed under his weight and he landed on his furry belly with a surprised yelp.

Maxi stood panting at the end of the hurdles, training and discipline warring with an urge of his own to run over and nuzzle and lick his new friend back onto his feet. Pookie stayed on the ground, teeth bared, looking decidedly angry. Of course he would not want to look stupid, Jack knew – and thought it was adorable.

“Sorry about that,” said Jack. “He has big bones. Growth spurts when he was a pup and an endocrine disorder,”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” murmured Mike. “…Okay.” Mike realized this could not be helped. Jack’s dog was large and oddly shaped. It was not that he was uncontrollable, from what he had seen before, just slightly physically different and seemingly over enthusiastic about training with another dog. It was certain he would be invaluable in some kinds of combat, with his size and speed.

“Let’s try apprehending targets or suspects,” suggested Mike. Pookie could certainly bring down most human targets.

Mike called in two men, while Jack went over and ruffled the fur between Brock’s ears. He was sitting up in dog fashion and looking decidedly pissed at making a spectacle of himself. Maxi sat next to him, looking good natured and giving Pookie a nuzzle and lick under the jaw.

Two men in heavily padded suits and what looked like football helmets approached. They looked curiously and a little nervously at Agent Rollins’s dog. But they were accustomed to training with huge Rottweilers and the like and quickly concentrated on Mike’s instructions.

One of them began to run away. Jack could feel Pookie tense at once and slid three fingers under his collar, gripping tightly. Mike whistled and Maxi went from sitting companionably with Pookie to deadly efficient attack dog, dashing after the man and running him down, grabbing his padded arm and pulling to get him down.

There was a rumbling growl, a burst of strength that Jack could do nothing against and the creature of myth was off after them, without command or permission. Pookie ran two legged up to Maxi and the training center quarry, swept the padded man’s feet from under him in a strangely martial-arts looking move and held on to him with two front paws as he crashed to the ground. Maxi let go of the man’s arm in some surprise, or deference to a superior’s kill or god knows what.

Mike watched with disquiet, something really was not right about this after all. Something was reminding him of some film he had seen – lots of them, actually and TV shows, where something with that size and shape and behaviour, tufted ears and clever, golden eyes was – was something he didn’t want to allow his mind to name or visualize right now.

The other padded man came over, yelling in a firm voice for Pookie to ‘stop’.

Pookie leaped up, leaving Maxi standing with two front paws on the fallen man’s back. Literally grabbing the shouting man he drew back a huge paw in what looked like the preparation to punch him – actually punch – then changed his mind and twisted and slammed him down in another very human move.

Sitting astride the man’s hips he pinned his arms up between his shoulder blades and looked over at Jack and Mike for approval.

Jack face-palmed. Mike licked the corner of his mouth.

“That’s enough for one day,” Mike murmured, still dismissing ridiculous thoughts from his mind – something from an old movie that had scared him as a child that had, however, fascinated him enough to stay in the back of his mind. That had possibly had steered him on a path in adulthood that involved training, working with and having expert control over big, fierce dogs.

Something about Pookie’s look and behavior reminded him of a youthful interest in dog/wolf related folklore. Folklore, after all had some misunderstood basis in reality, he reminded himself, and he had found that as fascinating as myths in itself as he got older. It was just something he was remembering from his youth and general interests, watching An American Werewolf in London and reading about people in France – usually with names like ‘ _Rais’._

He dismissed it from his mind along with the word _lycanthrope_ …

\------------------------------------------

  


The training session broke up. The two men muttered about the weird dog; Jack and Mike placated them, with charming apologies from Jack and reassurances from Mike that the dog had not had formal training of the usual kind as regards tackling targets, was a highly specialized animal used on SHIELD STRIKE team missions.

Maxi rubbed his snout under Pookie’s jaw in a friendly gesture as they sat together near the men. Pookie was watching the humans, his mind was usually clear and simple in this state, but he knew very well he had fucked up and his human reactions had bled too far into his behavior today.

He welcomed the signals of playful affection from Maxi. Maxi made no judgements, had accepted him and it was part of the appeal this wolf thing had. A kind of freedom – except the circumstances of his werewolf change, the involvement of Dr Woodhouse and Hydra complicated it. It was just another facet of Brock’s work life and very different from his dreams of running in woods in ancient Etruria.

Maxi was pushing at him with his tail wagging, now, wriggling over and around him, and Pookie let him, moved so that Maxi could paw him and climb on his back. Maxi gave the area under Pookie’s tail a good sniff and yipped excitedly. Then he was kind of snuggling him, dog-humping his hindquarters and Pookie/Brock thought some things never changed, he was always popular…

“Maxi! Off! No!” exclaimed Mike the dog handling trainer.

Maxi was being much too friendly, to say the least. Pookie looked up and around at Maxi with his teeth bared in what looked like a half-amused, half-embarrassed snarl.

Jack shook his head. “Can’t fucking take you anywhere,” he muttered.

\------------------------------------------

Jack and Pookie maintained the man and dog act all the way to the car, Jack opening the rear passenger door and indicating with his head for Brock to hop in the back seat like a real pet. Settling in the driver’s seat, Jack glanced in the rear view mirror and was met with a pair of honey-golden eyes from his strange, upright sitting passenger.

“ _Uas nuffin_ ,” growled a strange voice.

Jack blinked, surprise at the speech overtaking any interest in the meaning or implications. He remembered Brock-wolf uttering a Scooby-Doo-like attempt at forming words on several occasions, the first of which was back in the safehouse where he changed.

“ _Aaagg_ ,” he said it again, now. * _Jack*_ , in a wolf voice, with a lupine tongue and teeth, but human speech centers in his brain and presumably the correctly positioned larynx – Brock’s ancestors were fascinating, clearly…

 _“Eee tharded it_ ,” persisted Brock. “ _U pedded him firtht, mad im all frenwy_ ,”

Jack shook his head. Fascinating or not, he would rather speak to Brock, the original, regular little fucker.

“I saw. You gonna talk to me like a man, or play doggie for the rest of the day?” he asked, rather callously.

Brock-wolf glared at him and lay down with his chin on his paws in the back seat.

“Fine.” Said Jack. It was good Brock could enjoy some aspects of all this, of course. But Jack was only human, and he wanted to spend time with *Brock*. He had coped well with all this, and it was only right he should be rewarded for his patience.

************************

Driving past the sign for the strip unit, Jack had an idea. He turned off into the parking lot and pulled up right outside *Pets and Pals*.

“Stay here,” he ordered Brock-wolf, unfastening his seatbelt. “Just gonna get you something,”

 _“I ghaad the gar_?” said Brock in his growling, distorted voice.

“Well, yeah, that’s probably something you’re good at,” snorted Jack.

 _“Funny._ ”

Jack returned about four minutes later with a large cardboard box. Brock could see it as he peered out of the window, intrigued by brief glimpse of a picture of a large dog he caught, before Jack put it in the back of the pickup and tucked his motorcycle tarpaulin over it.  
“ _Waathaat? Waadithit?_ ” panted Brock-wolf, as Jack got back in the car.

“A surprise,” replied Jack, with one of those secretive, slightly mean tones he used whenever he had acquired some new form of bondage equipment - it had been a cock-ring last time, after Brock had picked up humming a Beyoncé song that one of the recruits kept finding on radios last year and Jack said he was going to take him at his word.

Brock-wolf poked his snout between the front seats and nosed Jack’s shoulder with it, prodding.

He whimpered appealingly.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Jack remained firm on that. Then he fished in his coat pocket and pulled out a packet of Milk Bones, passing it back to his companion. “Here you go,” he gave a concessionary looking smile.

Anything could have happened to Brock after than serum thing reacted the way it did. He could have become a real monster, like the Abomination, or the Hulk, or just a violent werewolf type thing like in the movies. Jack had to admit things could have been a lot worse, and a lot less manageable.

\----------------------------------------

Back home, Brock-wolf went to the bathroom at the back of the house while Jack opened his special purchase. Brock seemed determined to play dog, but it appeared he wanted to use the human toilet. Jack felt he should be grateful that at least toilet training was not necessary – but it was a bit weird, hearing the toilet flush and seeing the large, bipedal wolf man emerge from the direction of the toilet.

However, at the sight of what Jack had taken out of the box and placed by the wall, Brock dropped on all fours and went to the new item, sniffing it in a very dog-like way.

“Like your new bed?” asked Jack.

Brock sat in it and then flopped down, curling his wolf form into the new dog nest. It was pale pink, with pictures of peach colored bones and red bows. Ridiculously gender-coded and exactly the type of thing Brock should hate. Perhaps the comfort it afforded and the gesture of Jack buying it outweighed anything else for Brock right now.

Jack actually decided not mention the box described it as being ‘ _Fit for a Princess_ ’, as he had intended to.

“That’s where you will be sleeping,” added Jack. “You wanna play dog, then you don’t get to sleep in my bed.”

Brock’s wolf head shot up.

“You wanna make out with dogs and act like this, then you get treated like any other dog.” Jack continued to make his point. “Next I’m gonna get a doghouse to put in the yard,”

Brock-wolf snarled very softly, with a little show of teeth, just the way Brock always had a smart remark – but his head dropped back onto the edge of the dog nest almost immediately. He gave a dog-sigh and looked up at Jack with real puppy dog eyes.

“You wanna be like this, then we need to get the training right,” declared Jack. “You have to learn to act like an obedient, efficient dog, like Maxi at the center. Now that’s the type of dog I could handle more often.”

Jack turned to sit down on the couch; before he had time to process what was happening Brock-wolf was out of the nest and there was a distinct nip to his left asscheek. It was not really a bite, more like a very sharp pinch, but done with those powerful, deadly teeth. That and the acknowledgement of the speed with which Brock-wolf could move struck Jack with the full force of the potential danger he could be in with the werewolf in his house, in his life, like this.

It made his head spin to think how he could be dead in a second, it made him shudder and it made him start to get tingling hard.

“Get back in your bed!” he snapped, sternly, pragmatic and reacting appropriately as always. Brock-wolf’s ears flattened and he backed away, tail between his legs and slunk into his new dog nest.

It was too much for Jack, he had a control kink, no matter how he rationalized it, truthfully enough, that it was just that he had set ideas about how things should be in his own home, that he had been more pragmatic than Brock when they first met, and spoke his mind and ended up leading most things in their private lives. But he also got off on it, especially as Brock was, after all, a smart mouthed, defensive man who could be confrontational, yet ultimately rolled over for Jack in so many ways.

It was sick too, Brock was currently a half-man, half-wolf creature sulking in a dog nest, more animal than human in behavior and appearance right now. Though that was an interesting question – _would a wolf able to reason like that think him more monstrously human than lupine?_ \- but he was not Jack’s long term fuck-buddy-bro-boyfriend, whatever people might call it. To be turned on by this seemed sick… but hey, Jack was horny.

He moved over to the couch, flopping down without taking his eyes off the creature. Okay… the sight of him was not exactly hot as hell in itself, thankfully, but the situation was. Whatever happened Jack had just taken control. He sprawled, deliberately casually, spreading his legs and slumping in the seat, unfastening his pants and easing out his stiffening cock with a contented sigh.

He put his head back as he began to stroke and tug at his dick. Making it plain he was ignoring the creature of legend in the nest and focussed on his own pleasure, he none the less could hear the response.

Brock-wolf could hear Jack’s quickening breaths and little sighs, along with the sound of the PVC sofa squeaking ever so slightly under the subtle hip movements and the tiny, sticky noises Jack’s jerking off was making.

He could also see exactly what was going on.

Jack heard a snuffle, a whimper and the start of a high pitched whining. He smiled to himself, his eyes still closed.

Two seconds later and there was a scuffling next to him, a light impact on the couch cushion and Jack opened his eyes, pausing in his self-ministration. A tube of lube had landed next to him, retrieved from under the couch by a long snouted set of jaws and the black furry creature was shrinking, dwindling, its fur retracting.

It was the weirdest fucking thing he had ever seen. Last time Brock had done this it was under his hooded jacket in Dr Woodhouse’s office. Now he was transforming in front of him into a hunched, naked Brock, face screwed up in determination as it returned to that of the man.

Weird – but the naked part of it meant that Jack was not completely put off what he was doing. Certainly not, as Brock reached for the lube with his hands and squirted some on his fingers. Kneeling next to the sofa, Brock was watching Jack’s hand and cock with a hungry expression, mouth open like a panting dog still and he reached behind himself.

The muscles around Brock’s eyes tensed a little and more squelching hinted at what was going on with those lubed up fingers. He was opening himself up.

 Good thing Jack had not been too close.

Jack continued to jerk himself off, slowly and still seeming casual.

“You want this?” he asked, slightly breathlessly.

Brock climbed up and straddled Jack, lifting and shifting his hips to get his eager little ass over Jack’s dick. He eased himself on, little by little, Jack getting a little red in the face by now. Jack passed his hands over Brock’s back and stroked down his hips, revelling in the return of the smooth, muscular little frame he knew best.

He kneaded Brock’s ass and began to move under him as Brock began fucking himself on Jack’s cock, rising on his knees and finding the angle that made him gasp with a relieved kind of pleasure – much as he liked the freedom of the wolf state, he wouldn’t give this up for anything.

There was nothing wolf-like about the sounds he made now, and the groan of release when he came, untouched, just before Jack did. They stayed there for a while, Jack sprawled under Brock and supporting him as he squirmed gently over Jack’s hips, both panting softly.

As long as Brock had the choice of two worlds, they could cope with anything.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short linking interlude.

Brock sat at the kitchen table, turning the toasted raw steak sandwich over in his hands, slightly dazed from sleep and dreams. It was perfect, how the blood had soaked into the bread, softening its toasted crust in just the right way, exactly the effect he usually used sauces or mustard to achieve.

He had not asked Jack to make this, Jack had just put it in front of him when he sat and it was perfect. There was no point wondering if it was a little weird, or being at all put out that Jack would guess he would want this. Jack was responding beautifully to everything that had been going on and Brock knew it was something to be thankful for.

When Brock bit into it, it flooded his senses with perfection. It was what he needed, after most of yesterday spent in wolf form and sex and sleep. He didn’t flinch away when Jack passed a hand over his sleep-tousled hair on his way to the chair opposite.

Jack sat with his own, cooked version of the same breakfast and they ate in companionable silence.

So much had changed, but some things remained the same. The current situation had arisen, caused ripples of alarm and then simply fallen into patterns which were normal for them. It had happened naturally, almost without either of them discussing it. This was more reassuring for both Brock and Jack than constant in depth discussion of what to do.

Perfect.

\------------------------------

“It’s the perfect soldier,” said Dr Woodhouse, addressing his laptop. “Obedient with the right handlers, the right mix of instinctual aggression and cognizance. Fast, strong, carrying natural weapons. Commander Rumlow is the prototype for a new breed of super soldiers.

“The only question was, do we try to find candidates with a similar genetic predisposition? There are werewolf legends in many parts of the world - or legends of human/leopard/bear/local top predator beings at any rate. That suggests there are people who might be suitable.

“However, finding them and hoping the serum might trigger their latent genetic tendency in precisely the same way it has in Rumlow might prove costly, difficult and often disappointing. That is where a programme of duplication of Rumlow’s current genetic makeup would be better.

“”And that is where you come in. You have the facilities for that kind of experimentation and a need for.... Specialized personnel. This could be the start of a beautiful, productive relationship”

\-------------------------------------------

“Was thinking of taking the bike out later,” announced Jack, reaching for his mug of coffee. “You could go for a run in the woods,”

Brock was gnawing at the crust of his bread and starting to look a little vague. A few days off work always made him lethargic. It was as if recharging his batteries made him conserve energy generally. It was also possible that the things that had been happening to him were draining to his regular human system.

“I went for a run earlier,” Brock sounded disinterested.

“Sure, but I would think you need exercise and lots of it. A dog of your size -”

“I'm not a dog… for fuck’s sake, Jack,” Brock threw the chewed bread on his plate.

“You know what I mean,” Jack took a few gulps of his coffee. “With the way your body can be now,”

“Whatever,” Brock picked a piece of steak gristle out of his teeth with his tongue and swallowed it with a doglike backward tilt of his head.

Jack’s phone vibrated from over on the kitchen counter. Brock snapped alert for a fraction of a second, enough time for a twitch of the nostrils and an adorable tilt of his head before relaxing into his sandwich once more. It had Jack chuckling softly as he rose to get the phone, thinking of last night when the pizza had arrived.

_The knock at the door had had Brock’s head up over the arm of the couch, a picture of territorial tension, quizzical head tilt and bright eyes, reassured when Jack said “Pizza,”. Strangest thing of all was that this was not unfamiliar behavior, there had always been something of the puppy dog about Brock._

The phone call was from Arless, from the STRIKE team. He was confirming that he would have the team, which included two new members fresh from Hydra training, ready tomorrow at the camp the team used for regular training exercises.

Jack returned to the table after the call, resuming his seat opposite Brock, and relayed that information.

“We thought it would be a good time for the team to get used to you as a wolf,” said Jack, quietly.

Brock sighed and looked at his empty plate. “‘We’?” he remarked.

“Arless and me,” clarified Jack.

“Because when I’m a wolf, you are in charge,” Brock frowned a little.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Jack sounded patient and reasonable. “Look, Brock, you know I’m not interested in taking your spot -”

“When I’m a wolf, you are the Commander,” Brock ran a hand through his hair, which was not gelled up yet this morning, but retained most of its brushed back style through memory until he touched it. Some strands fell over Brock’s forehead, giving him a tousled look reminiscent of the way he had looked when Jack first met him.

He looked younger and vulnerable for an instant.

“You are the Commander, you idiot,” said Jack, reassuringly. He reached out and tousled the dark hair even more. “That’s the point of this, you show them what they have to get used to, _you_ tell them what you expect them to do. It’s just you’ve got a - an additional new specialized skill, that means you focus on that, I have to focus on you and they have to focus on carrying out your orders.”

“How am I supposed to give orders? Three tail-wags means-”

“Shut the fuck up, Rumlow,” said Jack.

Brock glared at him and slumped back in his chair.

“We are going out.” said Jack. “We are going to the woods,” he stood up abruptly. “Come on, get dressed,”

Brock sighed again, but stood up, the idea of a lazy day trip and an _al fresco_ fuck sounded good. Getting Jack’s clothes off outside on an early summer’s afternoon made him think of tawny hair and bubbling water - and not only from his dreams of his ancestors, or race memory or whatever the hell those dreams were. It would not be the first time Jack and he had had a day in the woods, with the slight risk of being seen adding a delicious edge to what was overall a private interlude away from SHIELD/Hydra and the rest of the world.

Brock moved around the table to head for the shower.

Jack, seeing a blue plastic dog ball in a box on the kitchen counter with the dog dish and bowl, had a mischievous impulse.

“You know you wanna go get some exercise,” he murmured, and moved in front of Brock on his way to the counter, making the other man hesitate to let him pass. Jack reached and snatched up the ball, holding up near Brock’s face and making a tiny throwing gesture without letting go of it.

A flicker of confusion passed over Brock’s face, then some kind of deep understanding seemed to settle in his eyes.

“You wanna play, hmmm…?” Jack threw the ball a few inches up from his palm and caught it, teasingly, like the start of a juggling move, then held it and drew his arm back.

Brock’s eyes flicked along the proposed trajectory the movement indicated and then focused on the ball.

_With every fibre of his being, Brock wanted to launch himself at where he could see that little ball was going. It was like every great goal he had ever anticipated achieving about to be realized. Any hope of all immediate desire fulfilled. Just a fraction of a second and he would burst forward for that ball - he knew it and he wanted it, everything he ever wanted was crystallized in what was about to happen. All he ever needed was embodied in a sphere of blue plastic about to be launched through the air…_

_The ball moved, Brock lunged - but the ball didn’t leave His hand. It was a feint, it was a cheat. A trick. Betrayal, Brock knew utter betrayal_ -

“Fuck you, Jack!”

Jack chuckled, shaking his head and tossed the little ball lightly to Brock, who caught it without thinking. It was enough to stop him launching himself at Jack angrily.

“You see, you have needs,” said Jack. “We’ve gotta deal with this. One thing you’re gonna need is exercise and a good long run every day.” he stepped closer to Brock, who swallowed and narrowed his eyes, nostrils twitching again. Jack always had an air of challenge and danger, moving up to him like that, after fucking with him like he often did before all this happened, pointing out his ‘needs’ and finding his weaknesses, finding every advantage he could - and doing exactly the right things about it,

It was fucking hot.

Jack dipped his head down to hiss in Brock’s ear. “A good run, fresh air, and then I’m gonna fuck you into the ground,”

Brock pressed the ball into Jack’s hand, squeezed past him and darted to the downstairs shower like a trip to the woods was his next desperate goal.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A picnic and a training exercise.

_The boy made the most of the warm, cypress scented summer evenings to run free in the forest. Come autumn he would be a man and the four legged life would be limited to holy days and the needs of war. Come autumn he would be settled, married, and turn his back on puppyish pleasures._

_For now he lived for the evening and the chase. Better still, he had the secret afternoons, when he would head for the river valley, following the sound of the wind through the reeds. There he would nuzzle through tawny fur with his own hairy snout and taste the river and salt on his human lips and tongue_.

Jack waited by a creek in a secluded spot in the forest. His motorcycle had been wheeled off the road and disguised behind a bush and he and Brock had walked a few minutes further into the woodland. This spot, next to a stream, was one they had used before for what amounted to a picnic, though they had never referred to it as that.

On arriving here, Brock had stretched his arms and cracked his neck, announcing that what he needed was a good workout. That had been Jack’s suggestion at breakfast and the reason for coming out here, but Brock said it like it was his own, inspired idea. Sniffing the air, he had started stripping off the baggy sweatpants and hoodie he was wearing.

A lewd smirk had left Jack’s face before it was fully formed when Brock hunched over briefly and began to change. It wasn’t like the movies, there were no torturous, long drawn out contortions or howling: within half a minute the Brock wolf was standing upright next to Jack at the side of the stream. It was the reverse of the change back to Brock Jack had witnessed the other night by the couch.

Rapid fur growth, shape change, a few grunts and some audible clicks from joints and Jack was not on a picnic (or whatever) with Brock. He was walking the dog again.

Brock wolf lowered himself on all fours and wagged his tail at Jack. He cast an eager glance off into the trees and looked back at Jack, obviously wanting permission to run.

“Okay… five minutes - don’t go too far,” murmured Jack. “...Go!”

Brock dashed away at zero kph to cheetah-speed instantly. He passed within feet of Jack, creating a draught and the unsettling impression that had he collided with Jack at that point, Jack would have been flung flat, or even been thrown halfway across the creek.

Jack snorted and gathered his wits, unpacking a large plaid woollen blanket and spreading it on the ground.

After five minutes he realized that saying “five minutes” to the creature of myth and letting him run off into the forest, free and unburdened with human cares - and not wearing a watch - had been a dumb thing to say. He listened, hearing nothing at first but the gently flowing stream, birds, wind in the the trees. No panting, no pounding paws.

Trained to use his natural senses where necessary, he focused more. The stream, the wind and the birds were still all he could hear and for a second something prickled in the back of his head. This was familiar - he liked the outdoors and the peace of nature, there was nothing like a ride on his motorcycle into the wilds and it was something he did whenever he got the chance.

But for a second it was overwhelmingly familiar, and it brought a sense of exposure. Not just somewhere to come and chill and read and maybe bring an accommodating boy, this was suddenly the environment he was always in and it brought a sense of danger.

 _Listen to those sounds, listen well, for danger can come suddenly in these beautiful places. This paradise hides a monster that comes from behind, suddenly bringing you down and you will feel its hot breath on your neck in your last moments, even before the shock hits_.

Jack froze.

It was irrational and it was over in a second, but Jack wanted Brock to return, not to be alone here a moment longer. Trying to keep an edge of panic out of his voice, panic ( _Panic?_ ) he did _not_ understand, he called for Brock.

“Brock!” he licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. “Brock, come here now! Pookie!”

There was a series of loud, warbling bird calls from the middle distance, the sound of wildly flapping wings and some agitated-sounding squirrel chittering. Something was spooking the wildlife and Jack got the feeling it wasn’t him shouting “Pookie!” like he had lost his chihuahua in the woods.

Then every hair stood up from the base of his spine to the top of his head, electric shocks of fear had him half-rooted to the spot, half twitching in the urge to flee. A low, eerie wolf-howl came from somewhere not far enough away, too close for comfort in the trees.

Apart from the first evening in Eastern Europe, numbed by shock and the distractions of scalded snouts, Jack had not been in any contact with the Brock-wolf, without having taken control, focused on the man within. Now he was in the woods, with strange feelings about water and wind of his own, with the evidence of scared wildlife and horror-movie howling.

A twig snapped to his left and Jack saw a black wolf face peeking around the bole of a tree. The long face of a classic predator - _he must warn the others and he must flee_  - was enough to send him mad with fear, like watching a scary film as a child in the safety of his home but feeling all the unsettled terror of the wild.

Jack was not easily spooked, he was pragmatic and had years of training and practice to think and fight his way through danger, beat down ( _Panic_ ) and use his head. It happened that his head was telling him to run right now. No shame in removing yourself from the source of peril, after all.

The fact that a part of Jack’s mind was screaming “ _But it’s just Brock and you wanted him to come to you! If he was going to act like a monster and tear you to pieces he would have done it already_.” did not cancel out the primal terror and unsettling familiarity of this situation and that _face_. It was time to run.

Jack turned to his right, with no plan, no destination for his flight, no safe place in mind, and _ran_. He was running for his life and for the ( _others, the herd_ ). The crack of twigs, soft yip, and the start of pounding paws and grunting breath closing in on him almost at once made him run faster.

It was not often that Jack ran from an opponent, he planned his moves too well to be surprised when he wasn't instigating combat. He ran from falling objects and explosions and flurries of fire, but there had never been many situation in his adult life where he ran in sheer terror from another being. Not without having a clear plan, not without racing for a vantage point.

Jack was efficient, Jack was scary, even, with the big body of a thug and a calculating mind. He was in control of himself and his life and his sexual encounters tended to involve partners of various levels of submissiveness. It was not often he was intimidated and terrorized and helpless.

Fleeing like a prey animal into the trees in blind panic, while the legendary embodiment of deadly predator pursued him. The thought made his heart beat faster. He was the prey for once and for some reason it was exhilarating.

A thudding impact on his shoulder blades and the inevitable ground-rushing-to-meet-him under sudden weight and momentum got a sharp cry out of Jack before the breath was driven from his body. There was a heavy, warm, moving mass pinning him down in the leaves and moss. The hot breath on his neck straight from his earlier ‘vision’ or fancy elicited a desperate gasp for breath and an embarrassing squeak of alarm.

For a few seconds there was grunting and wriggling and panting then a decidedly familiar chuckle, the weight lessening and Brock’s voice in Jack’s ear. “Gotcha!”.

Jack returned to his senses, aware of leaf mold stuck to his cheek and a raging boner. With a snarl, he freed his arms and twisted, dislodging Brock from his back. Wrapping both arms around him, he reversed their positions, pushing with arms and legs until Brock lay on his back underneath him, naked and eyes shining with excitement.

Jack looked at him with a hungry expression. Now he was turned on, by the thrill of being pursued by this endlessly fascinating creature. The chase, the woods, nature and ( _Panic_ ) was hot in Jack today. He started fumbling at his pants and underwear, and pushing them down. When Brock started to aid him in getting them past his hips he grabbed Brock’s hands and pinned them up behind him on the forest floor. Contrary and controlling as ever, he pinned him as an automatic response.

There was no question as to their united intentions as they started grinding. Brock arched beneath him, alternating between deep growls and soft puppy whimpers, his arms making angel’s wings in the leaf mold while he strained against Jack’s hands, wanting to clutch rather than escape him.

“Fuck…” groaned Brock, coming first; the thrill of the chase having been just as hot for him.

“Shit…” hissed Jack, a few moments later.

Then there was nothing but their synced breathing and the babbling of the stream for what seemed like a lifetime, though no more than one of their usual stolen few moments. Just like in another lifetime, perhaps.

\-------------------------------------------

There were dark rain clouds to the east of the highway as Jack drove the pickup to the STRIKE training camp/retreat several days later. They had spent the rest of the week relaxing, going to the woods and to a couple of secluded country places further afield every day for Brock to ‘have a run’. They had spent every evening eating and fucking and fooling around, making the most of Brock's human form.

Brock watched the looming clouds and frowned at the visible division between sunbeams and the shadow of rain.

He remembered the first trip to the woods and lying with Jack in the trees, Jack soft and heavy and slumping into a position less on top of him, muttering the kind of sappy shit he often did after sex and on the verge of sleep. There was always that softness to post-sex Jack, like the smooth curve of his normally angular cheek in repose. Brock had lain there and glanced down that long body, noting the crescent shaped, bright red bite mark surrounded by a speckled, fading bruise that largely clung to his hair follicles.

Brock had made that mark yesterday, nipping Jack’s ass half-playfully after dog training for speaking so highly of the attack dog, Maxi.

Things really could have been a lot worse. Remembering that this wolf transformation was going to be put to use at work blighted the few blissful days for Brock. Now the first day was upon him. They were going to acclimate him to the STRIKE team.

Brock had a crazy moment of wanting to tell Jack to keep driving. A “ _Let’s go somewhere, and never come back_ ,” moment. But he fought it down. He had responsibilities and he might have stumbled into a world of myth, through his dreams and his genetics, but it still brought him out into the real world.

Overall, everything they worked for was intended to make that world a better place. So he kept quiet except for a sharp little sigh, and when a big hand squeezed his thigh briefly and subtly, he took the message as always.

He had Jack and together they could face anything.

\----------------------------------------

The training camp was set in a large estate which featured woodland, scrub-land and hills and some cleared areas equipped for outdoor physical training. In essence it was not unlike the dog training facility Brock and Jack had visited recently, also containing a complex of cabin-like buildings which served as barracks, rest and eating areas, and classroom and admin areas.

Brock was struck by the similarity as he and Jack arrived today. He had trained and worked in similar places since he was eighteen years old. It was only today that it struck him that it was for providing an intensive environment in which to practice and train in things that were inherent and possible in humans in similar ways to training dogs.

Loyalty, aggression, discipline, following a clear hierarchical structure.

He exhaled slowly on exiting the pickup. Correction, it was similar in superficial ways, but of course the recipients of the training were functioning adult humans ( _even if some of the newer ones don't always act like it_ ) and this was HIS training facility. Here he was the Commander and the lead of the best (as far as he was concerned) team.

But he couldn't help thinking that actually, from now on, he was also in part the STRIKE team attack dog. A highly specialized one, but still…

\-------------------------------------------------

Assembled in the room used for team meetings, the various members of the STRIKE team digested the information Commander Rumlow had just provided in various way. Ralph Arless, and the two men who had flown Brock and Jack back from Eastern Europe a week ago already knew about Brock’s new skills and attributes.  
No-one else did until this moment. Universally there was a kind of quiet, respectful processing going on. An atmosphere rather like one that might be imagined had Brock announced that he had been diagnosed with some terminal illness, or been transferred to an admin role.

Brock didn’t give them long to absorb the news that he was an elective lycanthrope and would be using this ability on missions at some stage, sooner rather than later. It was the situation, it was in part a Hydra-induced situation and they needed to get used to it.

Looking at Jack, and getting a brief, encouraging upward twitch of the corner of his SIC's mouth, Brock lowered his head and hunched and changed in front of them. There was a brief ripple of surprise from a few of them, stunned murmurs. It was only to be expected; though this was an age of real life wonders and super-soldiers, it was not every day Brock Rumlow turned into a large, anthropomorphic wolf creature in front of their eyes.

But it would seem that from now on, that very thing was going to be a regular, or semi-regular feature of life. Brock would have been proud of how swiftly they seemed to come to the conclusion that they were just going to have to deal with it like professionals. He would have been proud had he not immediately fallen into that clear, simple state of mind his transformations gave him.

All he knew was that familiar people about whom he felt positive and protective and attached to in some way were mostly reacting favorably. There were a few soft chuckles of dog-appreciation, and one of the two newest members of the team murmured “Cool…” softly.

Brock’s tail began to wag.

\----------------------------------------

The camp’s building complex featured two spacious offices designated for the STRIKE team Alpha’s Commander and SIC. In the past, there had been gossip that Commander Wood had often been ensconced in his office with a newbie who was rapidly promoted to SIC named Brock Rumlow.

It was officially acknowledged that Captain Wood was very keen on advancing the promising, ‘driven’ Rumlow and spent many hours giving him the benefit of his experience, nurturing him. Jack Rollins had found out years later that had in fact was not all that Wood had been giving Brock. Many years too late to object in any way, as the old bastard had had his brains blown out on a mission in Ecuador and saved Jack the trouble long before the thought of braining him had entered his mind.

Jack had been the one who had encouraged Brock to milk the man’s apparent interest in him, which made him equally furious - although he had not realized how much milking was going on, to be fair.

Since then, Brock and Jack had basically carried on the tradition of SIC and Commander cooped up in one or other office behind locked doors. There was no gossip at all. It was shut down by Jack, or Arless, the latter having heard things he had no wish to repeat. Grunting and embarrassingly loud groans, phrases like “ _Jaaackiee… I need to come_!” and cursing and raucous laughter. One of the worst things was a sentence Arless had tried to scrub from his mind ever since, that he could not believe had come from the mouth of Jack Rollins, the most cringeworthy string of ‘endearments’ and sappy shit he had ever heard from a real life person.

Arless wanted to acknowledge no part of that side of the captain and second dynamic and he shut down any gossip, made it plain to every new comer that anything they overheard from either office when one was vacant and the other locked and occupied was - non-existent, never happened.

All Jack had to do to get some private reading time was lock himself in his office and get Brock to leave his own office vacant.

Jack was doing just that later that afternoon, but with the door open because he was guaranteed an hour or two alone. Everyone else was engaged in an assault course followed by a run. Brock remained in wolf form, trotting around mostly in a dog-like quadrupedal manner, being present and not wholly unfamiliar; the STRIKE team trained with dogs now and then.

Tomorrow it was planned that he would practice some more upright combat activities, to acclimatise everyone to his more specialized werewolf nature and appearance. Today he watched the training and trotted after them when they set off on a run consisting of several circuits of the woods and scrub, crossing a small stream and some small rocky hills at the north of the camp land.

The dark clouds Brock had seen earlier had drifted this way an hour ago and fifteen minutes into the run it began to rain heavily, turning the ground to mud in no time.

The recruit who had called Brock-wolf ‘cool’ earlier, Jon Redsell, paid more attention to the Brock-wolf than strictly necessary. They were not forbidden to interact with him, as such, but were told to focus on the activity as usual and treat Brock as an ‘observer’ for today. In fact Jon struggled the most with this kind of activity - though of course he was a lot fitter than an untrained civilian, he struggled more than some others.

Brock-wolf, keeping to the back of the group, naturally found himself trotting with Jon. Brock’s mind was clear, he knew what he was doing, but certain impulses dictated some of his behavior in this state. He had an impression of being in some way responsible for Jon’s progress in today’s activity, that he had some duty of care to these people and needed to facilitate them.

A flash of higher intelligence insight told him to run on two legs, in wolf form, with Jon. He had some notion that this had been done for him in the past, when people were encouraging him - or berating him - in a similar situation. He wanted to be encouraging.

Jon seemed so overjoyed at the situation that he showed signs of mirth and ran faster in a state of pleasure. Brock was pleased to have achieved this effect, it made him very happy and when the run was over, he wanted to play.

Brock took off on all fours - his fastest run despite the length of his hind legs - when the group approached the buildings for showers and rest. He returned before Jon had reached the door, carrying a small blue plastic ball in his mouth, retrieved from his belongings.

He barred the entrance to Jon, grunting and shifting on his paws like a boxer. Everyone else filed in around him and did not interfere or question. Brock-wolf dropped the ball at Jon's feet.

Chuckling, Jon picked up the ball and threw it into the building. He was happy to play with the Wolf-Commander, but he figured they both needed a shower. They were muddy and wet, Brock’s fur glistening and scattering freezing cold droplets as he instinctively shook himself at the doorway before dashing in a clumsy, over excited way after the ball. He caught it down the corridor that lead to the shower facilities. Jon showed promise as a tactician, leading the creature to where he wanted to go.

Brock-wolf brought the ball back to Jon and dropped it again. Jon picked it up and gauged his trajectory for a second, enough time for some process and identification in Brock-wolf’s mind to make him stand up, with the stance of someone anticipating a move in a ball game. Jon’s throw was altered by the moment’s hesitation this change and crossover of behavior caused.

The ball travelled further down the corridor at such an angle that it hit the wall. It was made from a durable plastic strong enough, but also flexible enough, to endure the bite pressure of large, excited dogs. This gave it some degree of bounce - and it bounced off the wall, at another, more random, angle and straight into one of the rooms off the corridor.

Brock-wolf was off after it, before Jon could process and get the sinking feeling that those rooms were the offices. He stood for what seemed an eternity of waiting for a possibly disastrous outcome to all this, while the Brock-wolf, all muddy paws eagerly pounding, skittered to a fraction of a second’s halt, turned left and followed the ball into the room.

It was Jack’s office, all neat and tidy, with a filing cabinet to the left of the door, into which a powerful flank collided as Brock skidded into the room, paws sliding on the wooden floor, slippery with mud. The cabinet fell over.

Jack had already jumped when the blurred black shape barrelled into the room and the flinch he made at the metallic clatter and thump of the fallen cabinet was part of the same shock. When the intruder collided with his desk, yelping at the impact against his chest and scrabbling with muddy paws at the desk top to prevent himself from crashing to the ground, Jack just closed his eyes.

He could hear the pile of paper files fall fluttering. He should have put them away, as he intended to read _Sense and Sensibility_  but hey…

Brock-wolf dropped out of sight briefly, then popped up again, his great furry head reaching over to drop the little blue plastic ball on the desk in front of Jack with a little plop. His golden eyes took on the most innocent, appealing puppy dog look ever adopted in the history of wolf/dog/human relations.

Well… Jack could hardly be mad at him, he supposed.

He was however, mad at the sheepish Jon, who almost tiptoed into the room to own up. At least he showed the required level of mad in keeping with his position and the needs of order. Jon spent the next hour scrubbing the office with a primitive mop and a bucket of soapy water, achieving a deeper clean than muddy werewolf paw-prints warranted.

Brock-wolf enjoyed a shower with Jack’s supervision and took a relaxing dog-nap in his own room while Jack finished a few more chapters of his book.

\-------------------------------------------

This was a training exercise, with the specific additional element of introducing Brock-wolf to the team, but it was also a bonding exercise. In the evening, when the rain had gone, there was a barbecue and a pleasant kind of downtime feel in the outside rest area.

Brock-wolf emerged from his room refreshed and smelling the food. He passed through a welcoming group of team members and a few tentative head scratches and pets as he approached the barbecue. It seemed the hesitancy stemmed from whether it was respectful to pet your Commander, however fluffy and friendly he seemed, rather than any fear of him as a powerful wolf-like creature.

Brock-wolf stood on all fours wagging his tail at the barbecue and Jack, who was cooking hot dogs and looking genial. A flicker of mischief crossed Jack's face. Something the team needed to know was that he had a special position of control over the Brock-wolf - and it was something he liked to remember himself.

He took a hot dog and placed it in a hot dog bun, squelching mustard over it. It seemed with the interchangeable nature of Brock's states of human and werewolf, he could expect to eat whatever was appropriate for either species. He had not seemed to suffer any indigestion or come to any harm in either state when he had previously eaten in one form or another.

Jack held out the hot dog, with a neat, wavy line of mustard along its length, just the way Brock liked it.

“Want some?” he asked.

Brock-wolf licked his lips in anticipation.

“You gonna ask real nice?”

There was a scattering of attention from those closest to them, a kind of curious quiet.

Brock-wolf sat in his best obedient dog sit position, and tilted his head, appealingly.

“Real nice,” repeated Jack.

Brock-wolf raised his front paws in front of him, together, straightening up but remaining in sit position. There was a ripple of affectionate, soft laughter. It was not mocking, Jack was sure, but just appreciative and puppy-loving.

“Good boy,” said Jack, brightly, and offered the hot dog on his open hand.

Brock-wolf put his forepaws out to each side for balance and with a quick lunge of his head the hot dog was in his jaws.

“...Cool.” murmured Jon for the second time that day.

Jack thought it was pretty cool too.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack has taken Brock's lycanthropy in his stride overall. Part of his ability to cope comes from his unfailing ability to rationalize and to find out as much as he can about things that challenge him. 
> 
> He is about to find out a lot more, and to realise that he and Brock have more in common than than anyone could have guessed.

  
Jack had settled into Brock’s quarters at the STRIKE camp this weekend. He had figured that because they had agreed that Brock would be exclusively using wolf form to acclimatize himself and the team, he needed to ‘supervise’ him. In fact he often did just bunk up with Brock in here, as Brock’s was the biggest of the rooms for officers. Jack had stopped periodically remembering this had of course been Captain Wood’s room when they first came to STRIKE Team Alpha years ago and wondered why he was thinking of that now.

Perhaps it was the general sense of a shake up and mental stocktaking that had been hanging around Jack’s mind since the werewolf stuff happened.

_Jack’s thoughts strayed back nearly twenty years, to a similar night in this STRIKE training camp. He and Brock were both fresh from Hydra training, assigned to this STRIKE team and spending a weekend on the same kind of team exercise as they were on now._

_The atmosphere largely centered on team bonding, lots of relaxed downtime for mingling. Certainly it was like a vacation compared with the Hydra training, there was a lot more freedom in the evenings after the day’s scheduled activities and Jack had been reading contentedly in a small communal room. He had been its only occupant until there was a knock at the door._

_Jack had shut the door, but it was not lockable. He looked up and said automatically, “Come in…?”_

_Brock had put his head around the door, grinning sheepishly, “I guessed it’d be you in here,”_

_He had, to Jack’s knowledge, been spending some one-on-one time with Captain Wood. Jack had taken the opportunity to read in here._

_Brock had come to Jack and seated his compact form on Jack’s lap sideways, reaching up and lacing his hands around his neck. He was grinning in a self satisfied way and the unabashed lap-sitting proved he was in one of his softer moods, cute and adorable._

_“The Captain’s says he’s gonna make me the second by the end of the year,” confided Brock.”You were right about him,”_

_Well, that was good news, Jack had been encouraging Brock to take advantage of Captain Woods’s apparent interest in him. Brock had been a Sergeant in the Army and was an ambitious young man._

_Brock looked very pleased with himself and snuggled with a satisfied chuckle against Jack’s shoulder, giving his neck a quick nuzzle. He smelled of beer and had a softness in his eyes, a manner of good natured self satisfaction that alcohol and coming to Jack at the end of a good day gave him._

_He was always accommodating and endearing in these situations. Jack often felt he was lucky, getting this fascinating, good-looking guy, who showed promise professionally, but displayed these streaks of twink-like behavior and adoration towards him._

_Jack was wrapped up in what a great end to a good day this was turning out to be for him, too, when Brock shuffled off him with a big grin. He started stripping off an already thrown on looking shirt and pants - and nothing else. It was only some years later that Jack had thought of this before and remembered how damp and open Brock was when he straddled Jack’s hips and Jack reached down to get him ready._

_At the time he had briefly thought perhaps Brock had started things off before coming here. Cute, eager - for a while now Jack had known that Captain Wood had been showing lots of direct interest in his protege. When Jack found out in Arezzo, years later, what exactly had been going on there, he had wanted to kill the already long dead Wood. But in time he rationalized that he always was, when all was said and done, the main course for Brock, and the Captain just a useful appetizer._

In the here and now, Brock’s room had a bed large enough for two in one corner, a TV and a desk. As Jack came in, he could see the Brock-wolf stretched out on his side on the bed, snoozing again. He certainly napped a lot in this state. But he had been on a run, played around with Jon and the ball and begged for five hot dogs from Jack at the evening barbecue.

Others had given him burgers and hot dogs. He had his snout in the industrial-sized tub of mayonnaise at one point and later made off with a cellophane bag of burger buns. He was found by Jack when the gathering started to break up, hunched behind a tree covered in crumbs and struggling with a can of beer with his dew claws.

Brock-wolf was lying with his nose in his paws on the bed, the upper half of his wolf body chest down on the mattress. The lower half was turned sideways, a graceful, muscular curve to his hip and his hind legs reminded Jack that he always was a good looking guy. Now he was a fine looking example of wolf/mythical creature/Jack’s pet.

Jack took a tablet from the desk and crawled onto the bed, lifting and rearranging the Brock-wolf’s legs gently to drape them over his lap and sit up with his back against the wall. He started scrolling through the tablet, finding the internet searches he had been making on werewolves and related lore.

Going off at tangents of interest, down side branches of feral child stories and the direct information of Greco-Roman myth, he had been trying to get to the history of the Etruscan Luceres tribe.

* _At this time (traditionally 750 BC), Romulus divided the people into three tribes, known as the Ramnes or Ramnenses, named after himself, the Tities or Titienses, named after Titus Taius; and the Luceres or Lucerenses, whose name and origin were obscure to the ancient historians._

_Known as the three Romulean tribes, these first tribes have in modern scholarship been associated with the putative major ethnic groups of early Rome: the Ramnes representing Rome’s Latin population; the TIties represented the Sabines, and the Luceres represented the Etruscans._

_Many of Rome's cultural institutions were of Etruscan origin. It may be to this period, rather than the time of Romulus, that the institution of the Luceres belongs; and indeed the names, if not the ethnic character of all three of the Romulean tribes appear to be Etruscan._

_Now to the werewolf bit - Once Romulus built his city, it is said that he then divided the people into three tribes, which bore the names Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres. It is believed that the Luceres were possibly a tribe of werewolves, which were also said to be a group of wild people. Many scholars have argued that the first of the Luceres were lupine werewolves with powerful and cruel chiefs that terrorized the native people in the area._

_The other tribes were largely associated with a cult around Faunus, and Pan - these beings were presented as half man, half goat beings derived or merged with the Greek satyrs._

_Faunus is the Latin outcome of a PIE *dhau-no- meaning "the strangler" and denotes the wolf. According to D. Briquel ("Le problème des Dauniens" in MEFRA 1974) it is likely that the Luceres, one of the three tribes of Rome, were Daunians from Ardea, as well as the characters of the Aeneis Mezentius, Messapus and Metabus, who show a Daunian origin. A. Pasqualini agrees on the presence of a Daunian connection in the towns of Latium claiming a Diomedean descent. Moreover, it would seem that there is a sizable presence of Daunians in Latium and Campania (Liternum, Nola). Festus 106 L records a king Lucerus who helped Romulus against Titus Tatius. Moreover, Oscan epithet Leucesius (present also in the Carmen Saliare) and Lucetius (Servius Aen. IX 570 "a luce") should be interpreted as related to the Luceres. He also lists the Leucaria mother of Romos (Dionysius of Halicarnassus I 72), Jupiter Lucetius, toponyms Leucasia /Leucaria (Pliny III 8 (13) 85; Dion. Hal. I 53) near Paestum, the ethnonym Lucani. Though Briquel is apparently unaware that the etymology of both "Luceres", Lucera, Leucaria, Lucani and Dauni is from a word meaning wolf and therefore different from that of Leucesius/ Lucetius, i.e. from IE from *luq (wolf), not from *leuk light: compare also Hirpini and Dauni. Daunos according to Walde Hoffmann [5] is from IE root *dhau to strangle, meaning the strangler, epithet of the wolf: cfr. Greek thaunos, thērion Hes., Phrygian dáos, lykos Hes., Latin F(f)aunus. According to Alessio Latins and Umbrians both did not name the wolf because of a religious taboo, thence their use of loanwords such as lupus in Latin (which is Sabine, instead of the expected *luquos) and the Umbrians hirpos (cfr. Hirpini) originally male goat instead of expected *lupos, whence also herpex for hirpex tool in the shape wolf teeth.*_

Jack had been trying to isolate the source of the Luceres myths. Living with proof that they originated in physical fact for only a week, he nonetheless felt the next part of this experience was to unravel the origin of Brock’s ancestors. Jack had an inquiring mind when something interested him - and this was personal.

He also relished the sense of mystery. Genetically, a wolf-man made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Dr Woodhouse had touched on the notion that the enhancement serum had tapped into something in Brock’s genes that promoted strength and stamina and found this inherited lycanthropy trait.

Genetics and DNA and the branches of mammalian evolution were far better understood now than in the days of Plutarch, Livy and even Victorians like Panichelli., let alone in the older Hellenic myths. Lycanthropy in itself was something that belonged firmly in the realms of myth and ancient religions. It was understandable that historically people should have stories of humans turning into wolfmen/leopard men/bear men.

Humans had cults and religions and rituals revering the aspects of top predators in order to emulate their hunting prowess. Other humans may have seen their rituals, or met them in war dressed in animals skins, emulating fierce animals as warriors and reinforced the myths.  
But this was real; Brock’s ancestors had been wolf people. A wild man/animalistic hunter tendency in humans surely should produce something more like an ape than something half human, half wolf. Jack was intrigued and was researching, more confused by the scientific inaccuracy and the deepening mystery than ever.

_The Victorian writer, Augusto Panichelli,(Tuscany, 1852) identified him as Lupercus (“he who wards off the wolf”), the protector of cattle, following Livy, who named his aspect of Inuus as the god who was originally worshiped at the Lupercalia, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple, February 15, when his priests (Luperci) wore goat-skins and hit onlookers with goat-skin belts._

 Jack rubbed his eyes, Augusto Panichelli - that name again. Panichelli was a Tuscan name and the family name of a certain ( _fucking gigolo)_  dentist - Raffaelo Panichelli - from Arezzo that Jack still had files on after all this time. It still irritated him.

Augusto Panichelli also asserted that -

_*Information on one of the tribes of lycanthropes, Luceres, is presented. Luceres or Lucumones usually roamed around the region near Rome and were generally considered as mad people. Luceres consisted of tribes of werewolves, who aims at systematically terrorizing the natives of the area. Some researchers link Luceres with Lokroi, who is said to be the son of Jupiter/Zeus and Maira, a she-wolf.*_

_The terrorization of the locals relates more in reality to the incursions of wolf puppies on the livestock of the non-lupine locals than attacks on the people. It is said that the coming of age rites of passage for Luceres tribe members involved making a kill in wolf form, and the increasingly farm-orientated lifestyle of the human ‘stone dwellers’ facilitated this ritual._

_Cults devoted to Pan and Faunus, the patrons of shepherds and flocks sprung up. It is said that some of the shepherd guardians in the region were not entirely human, and that these satyr/faun cults derived from the historical fact that such beings taught the people the art of shepherding.*_

Jack’s search trails were constantly bringing up fauns and satyrs and it seemed logical enough that goats and sheep were mentioned in wolf legends - eccentric as Signor Panichelli’s general tone seemed to be overall, in suggesting that the satyrs were real. Jack shut down the thought that a week ago he would have considered someone suggesting werewolf stories were based on fact as ‘eccentric’ - any historian from Tuscany, named Panichelli, was going to get his ( _get his goat_ ) get his scorn.

However, ancient people were eternally trying to protect livestock from predators. Once they made the change from semi-nomadic hunters to being settled farmers with enclosed animals, those animals were a sitting target and the battle with the big bad wolf was on. The local predator became the eternal enemy, the wolf at the door, as the struggle of their lives moved into fixed husbandry. Defying nature and the climate replaced emulating the skills of the hunters.

The satyrs seemed an interesting but irrelevant aspect of the myths, but Jack couldn't help being fascinated. He kept thinking of trees and wind and a babbling stream. Brock had described his dreams to him and Jack guessed they touched some chord because _Brock_  touched some chord in him. Yet the incident in the woods the other day had felt almost as if Jack was experiencing some weird flashbacks of his own and it confused him.

( _The priests of Faunus hit onlookers with goatskin belts)_

Jack put the tablet down on the floor at the end of the bed, leaning sideways with his long reach. He was careful not to disturb the sleeping Brock-wolf. Settling with his back against the wall, Jack rested his hands on the soft, furry, elongated feet across his lap.

Brock-wolf’s feet were relatively skinny in wolf fashion, long tarsals, metatarsals ending in sharp, curved claws. The fur was soft on the heels of Jack’s hands as he began to stroke the feet, dreamily. Petting your dog was therapeutic, after all.

Jack’s fingers found large, leathery toe beans. The pads of his own fingers were soothed as he stroked these beans. Brock-wolf snorted and twitched, a decidedly contended sounding rumble came from the wolf’s throat.

No change there; Brock always liked a foot rub… profound change and comforting familiarity. It was what was keeping Jack together lately. Keep the puppy content and get a peaceful life, no change there.

Jack drifted off into a snooze of his own.

_The Tawny One lived in the forest, many miles to the west of the seven hills. Out here it was still peaceful, the encroachment of human stone dwellings was modest, only a little woodland cleared for each settlement. They kept animals and they grew crops, and they still overall respected nature. In fact their settled lifestyle kept them even more in awe of the forest and the wild._

  _They were slowly forgetting certain truths and seemed to misunderstand some the things that their forebears accepted. They were, by and large, afraid of the forest and the presence of their still more wild, though also technically human, neighbors. Those people lived an older lifestyle, hunting and gathering - and some of the hunting was still done on four legs._

_They were slower to let go of those ancient traditions and the stone dwelling people had come to fear them with a superstitious dread. They considered them to be beasts, the danger of death in the trees, more or less demonic._

_It did not help that in their four-legged forms they were stealthy predators with sharp teeth and eyes that retained the light of the moon. It was understandable in that their voices carried on the wind in a mournful D minor song of death that could make their souls shiver. It certainly did nothing for their current reputations that they tended to view the stone dwellers’ practice of keeping their flocks enclosed in fenced off fields at night as a contained source of prey._

_That had, of course helped the Tawny One. Past generations had benefited from the knowledge of his kind in using the ways of the herd to contain and control them. They viewed his presence as a divine visitation - perhaps it was, he understood he was part of nature, a phenomenon that their minds interpreted as divine. At any rate, he had a sweet deal going on with the local stone dwellers._

_He lived in the forest and when they sang their songs at certain times of year he came and played his pipes for them. He checked their flocks every night and those that glimpsed him thought themselves blessed. He was left to his own devices. Unlike many of his kind, he craved peace and quiet. He liked to muse and play music, learning from the song of birds and listening to the tones of the wind in the reeds and the rushing of the stream._

_Sometimes he recorded his thoughts and some of his imaginary musings on pieces of parchment. He would read them back at a later time and muse further. For several generations of stone dwellers he lived like that._

_Once a year, they held a festival wherein they would dress up to look like him and his kind. They drank fermented fruit juices and ate good food and played music. If he went among them he could pick and choose a good fuck. It was assumed he was whoever had been chosen to represent him in their rituals and any boy or girl he took a liking to would do whatever he wanted and eagerly obey his instructions._

_There was a part of his nature that was always hungry for that kind of thing._

_It was a good life. Lately it had been less peaceful, mostly because of the damn local kids - the four legged variety. Groups of them would maraud the stone dwellers’ fields at night, practising for their coming of age rituals, which involved making a kill as a wolf. During the day, some of the younger ones became bolder on the forests. The forest had become more and more the permanent home for many of these people of the Luceres tribe._

_Many of them came deeper and deeper into the heart of the wild places to escape the stone dwellers and their increasingly effective artificial weapons. Being predators brought persecution, not reverence for the Luceres, these days. They feared the stone dwellers as much as those people feared Luceres._

_They would defend themselves aggressively, and the vicious circle began._

_Their young ones increasingly sought the most secret places of the forest to play in. Their howls and yipping and baby-scuffles disturbed the Tawny One. The stone dwellers blew their horns to summon him more and more frequently, to raise the wolf alarm. The deal was, the Tawny One would protect their sheep and their farms in times of need, or war._

_It was constant war against the Luceres._

_More and more often the Tawny One would chase wolf puppies from the clearing where he lived. The top of the river valley, near the waterfall from the nearest hill was his domain. Only those closest to nature would venture here, and the puppies (damn kids!) were close to nature. Half human, half lupine, they had no fear of any of the secret places._

_One of them caught the Tawny One’s eye several times one summer. He was not quite grown, still a puppy, with paws too big for his otherwise gracefully formed wolf body. His fur was the darkest brown, almost black and he was bold. The Tawny One caught him several times, watching from a safe distance, alert and with his tail wagging cautiously. He yelled at him to fuck off and he ran._

_He sometimes played with a group of his friends - a group made more noise than the Tawny One cared for, but when he scared them off charging and throwing stones, the little brown wolf was always the last to leave, with his tail between his legs._

_The Tawny One set a trap, determined to teach these kids a lesson. One late afternoon towards the end of summer, there was a creaking, a loud yelp and a small crash. The Tawny One put down the parchment he had been leisurely reading and got up to see what he had caught in the concealed pit he had dug out and rigged up to trap intruders._

_He could hear a high-pitched whining as he approached. There was a second where he stood, swallowing slightly, he was not a predator himself and the thought of possibly having injured something in a trap intended to scare and contain bothered him. But he was determined to teach the local kids to stay away from his river glade._

_He knelt down and reached into the small pit with a long, muscular arm. Something bit him, nipped his hand sharply with a curse - a definite “Uck u!” in a distorted, growling voice and there was a shrill little snarl. It was certainly one of the damn Luceres wolf puppies; they used human language in wolf voices. They were, after all, human as much as wolf._

_The Tawny One shook his hand and slapped at the now wriggling little body in the pit, getting another yelp and more cursing. He reached down with both hands and scrabbled to grasp his prisoner, which seemed to shrink and dwindle as it evaded him._

_What he eventually managed to drag out of the hole was not a wolf puppy. He was grasping the upper arms of a young adult human, a boy, not quite a man, but not what in human terms would be classed as a child. He was olive skinned, with honey coloured eyes currently swimming with what were angry tears, judging by the continuing cursing and bitching. A typical member of the Luceres tribe in human form, with glossy dark hair._

_The Tawny One held him away at arm's’ length as the kid tried to kick at him; he was wiry and strong, and furious._

_“What the fuck, let me go!” snapped the kid, looking at him like he had never seen him before._

_The Tawny One shook him when one of the twisting kicks landed successfully on his thigh. A few inches to the left and the kid would have made his displeasure known even more._

_“Stop that! You calm down and shut up. I’m going to teach you to come here and disturb me! This is my place and I’m sick of you kids hanging around!”_

_The boy stared at him. “What the fuck *are* you?” he asked, rudely. “You look like a goat,”_

_The Tawny One frowned at him. “Well of course I do - don’t you know it’s rude to stare?” he was briefly puzzled. He knew that this kid was the little brown wolf who he had noticed lately, and that therefore he must recognize the Tawny One. There was only one of his kind around here after all, and thinking back, it seemed the little brown wolf had been more curious than the others about him._

_Perhaps it was that in wolf form, these Luceres people were more uncomplicated in what they felt and thought about things around them. If something caught their interest, then they did not question it in the way they might in human form. This was the first time, presumably, the kid had seen the Tawny One as a human._

_But there was not time for philosophizing, the kid was wriggling and trying to kick again. The Tawny One shook him again, and slapped the side of his head, sharply._

_“I said enough of that!” he snapped. The kid stared at him again, swallowing. He looked the Tawny One up and down, more warily now. He was a lot smaller than the goat-man, and a lot more vulnerable in this human state. The Tawny One wondered why he had changed this way, he could have possibly put up more of a struggle as a wolf, albeit a young one. Perhaps it was related to emotional states, or that the kid had less control under this kind of circumstance. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism of a different kind - he might have more sway, more chance of appealing to a captor as a human._

_He was certainly appealing. The Tawny One was accustomed to young humans, from his encounters with the stone dwellers. He had a certain fondness for them, and he indulged it from time to time._

_The boy had looked the Tawny One up and down again, his gaze resting on the area where the man’s torso, big built and muscular, merged into tawny, curly fur that covered his lower body and legs that ended in goat’s feet with cloven hooves._

_He frowned just a little, confused, and blinked when his eyes came to rest on the very human cock nestling in tawny hairs. He licked the corner of his mouth and muttered “Phallus…”_

_The Tawny One nearly laughed, but adopted a suitably stern expression. He was supposed to be making sure this kid never came back to disturb his peace and had reason to tell all his friends to stay away in future. He was not supposed to be having thoughts about the fun he had with humans at certain times of the year._

_He was not supposed to be thinking that this kid was nearly a man and a fine looking one at that._

_“You’ve got a dick like a man,” said the kid. “But you’re part goat,”_

_“And you’re part wolf, so what?” the Tawny One was amused._

_“Yeah, but I’m either one thing or the other, not both at once,”_

_“I’m not so sure about that,” mused the Tawny One. He risked releasing one of the boy’s arms and cupping his face instead in long fingers, forcing him to look up. “I think there’s something of the puppy about you even now,”_

_He leaned down, determined to make an impression. “Like I said, I’m getting sick of you little puppies coming here and disturbing my peace. I'm going to teach you that you can’t just came around here making noise, any more than you can go to the farms in the valley and just help yourselves to those flocks. I am going to punish you - I am going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget.”_

_The kid was looking even more wary, but there was something, a kind of fascination in his expression. “What you gonna do?” he whispered, and the Tawny One recognized something else. Those young stone dwellers he had fun with at the feasts, they were eager to please generally, thinking it was all part of a ritual to honor a god. Some of them were more eager than others, to submit and obey. It was a facet of some humans’ nature - and the Luceres were, again, as much human as wolf._

_This kid was wide eyed with anticipation at the suggestion of some form of retribution for getting on the wrong side of this big, man shaped goat._

_“Well…” the Tawny One considered, a lot of ideas sprang to mind - but the attention the kid had been paying to his cock gave him a good one. It had also given him the start of a tingling boner. There was no denying it when that happened; he was after, one of the people who had come from over the sea from the lands of the Hellenic peoples, so long ago he had forgotten a lot of that life himself. But he remembered that there his kind had been called ‘satyrs’ and the humans all knew of their driving lust._

_“Well.” repeated the Tawny One. “First off, you can suck my dick,”_

_The kid looked a little confused._

_The Tawny One snorted. “Haven’t you done that before?”_

_The kid shook his head._

_“Never been with a man before? A woman?” He tilted his head. “A - a dog, a bitch?” he had to ask. The kid shook his head to all of these._

_“Well, well,” the Tawny One put his hand to the back of the boy’s head and pulled his face closer to his tawny crotch. “I’m going to have to teach you from scratch,”._

Jack came awake to the sound of music. It was coming from Brock’s phone, on a small locker near the head end of his bed in the STRIKE camp. It was playing so quietly that the most noticeable part of it was percussion, a beat that almost tinkled into Jack’s awakening mind. It brought him a vision of Brock’s red, dripping, straining cock as he teased it with his tongue and the tactile memory of his firm, round ass under his hands as he kneaded that, probably years ago specifically, to that tune.

Brock was lying on his back, one hand under his head and the other stroking up and down his own cock in a dreamy, lazy manner. He was fully human again, greeting Jack’s awakening with a broad smile.

There were human feet under Jack’s hands, moving, the toes kneading against Jack's long fingers.

Jack was confused by his dream, but the reality of Brock lying there, beating off languidly and facilitating the continued foot-rub while Jack slept was reassuring.

“You were gonna stay… you were gonna be a wolf… in character,” muttered Jack, remembering practicalities.

“Couldn’t resist,” said Brock. “I’m not made of stone,”

Jack remembered the statues in the museum at Arezzo, including some of satyrs. From that he remembered his weird dream. He was alert enough and not post-orgasmic at this point, so he did not add that Brock was as much as work of art in his human state as any classical sculpture. He just stretched his arms, started unfastening his shirt.

“You need a hand with that?” he asked, gesturing to Brock’s dick with his head.

Brock grinned and nodded.

Jack lifted himself up from under Brock’s legs, shrugging off the shirt and kneeling up, pushing his pants down.

“A hand? Mouth?” he offered, crawling up and over Brock, claiming his neck with his lips and tongue before Brock could respond.

“They’re all for you, cos you’re all mine,” he whispered in Brock’s ear.

All his, for longer than he realized, he thought. Things were getting weird lately, but there had always been this olive skin, marked with his teeth and saliva, that compact muscular form, those honey eyes.

Jack and Brock were ancient history, but by no means done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpts * - * taken from  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman Tribe  
> Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faunus#cite_note-6  
> www.werewolves.com/an-ancient-tribe-of-werewolves/
> 
> The Tuscan historian 'Augusto Panichelli' is a fictional character and the 'excerpt' Jack reads is original to this story.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past is explained a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short linking chapter to establish a past connection.

He was like a hungry animal.

With his hands on his shoulders, pinning him into the mattress, he nuzzled under that sharp jawline and moved down, lips on a sensitive throat. The eternal risk of stubble rash was nothing to him, nothing compared with the need to taste and savour, The redness his grazing teeth and gun-calloused fingers left on olive skin made him hungrier still.

It had often been like this. The limitations of their lifestyle, lack of privacy in barracks and training camps, the constraints of professionalism and a need to focus on missions had often created a desperate urgency to sex, grabbing windows of opportunity had made them both frantic.

Long years of Brock’s own denial had made Jack take what he could whenever he could. It made him rough, it made him launch these passionate attacks, his mouth and hands everywhere, marking, claiming. Brock had no complaints. He liked the hickeys and bruises however much he bitched about ‘evidence’.

He always liked it rough.

\-----------------

_In the sacred grove, the Tawny One pulled the olive-skinned Luceres puppy-boy closer. He was on his knees, still wearing an adorable, perplexed little frown. Tawny tightened his grip on the back of the boy’s neck, feeling the kid’s breath so close to his groin made him horny, seeing the confusion made him feel… sympathetic? Tender, almost?_

_But the horny won out, Tawny was, after all, a horny old goat._

_“Take it in your mouth,” he instructed, hoarsely._

_“P-phallus?” the boy muttered._

_“Yes - I can speak Latin, for fuck’s sake - take it in your mouth,”. Horny made him impatient and cruel. He reached down and grasped his dick, angling it more towards the Luceres boy’s mouth. “Open,”_

_The kid opened his mouth, as the only option if not to be smothered in tawny curls, eyes crinkling and blinking, adjusting to what was clearly totally unfamiliar. He grabbed at Tawny’s hips for purchase. Nonetheless, he took the goat-man’s cock in his mouth, kind of scrabbling with his lips and tongue to pull it in._

_When Tawny shifted his feet and gave an experimental thrust, the boy gagged, his fingers digging into the satyr’s hips and his jaws tightening sharply._

_The slight pain of snagged tawny hip fur and the pinch around his dick reminded Tawny to set safety standards. He slapped the back of the kid’s head sharply._

_“Hey! Watch those claws - and no teeth, puppy!” he hissed._

_The kid snorted and put one of his hands around the base of Tawny’s cock, circling, fingers trailing down to feel the ball-sac experimentally. He focussed his eyes on a spot to the left of them, at the edge of the stream, where a dragonfly glimmered blue in the rushes and the sun turned the surface of the water into a rainbow. He looked like he was concentrating hard on a strange new puzzle, before plunging ahead, nuzzling, suckling, teasing little swallows promising the world as he cradled Tawny on his tongue and began to blow him like he was born for it._

_Tawny’s fingers clutched at the puppy’s shoulder with one hand, the fingers of the other grabbed at his dark hair, clenching and spasming. For a minute there was nothing but the babbling stream, the sound of his gasping breath and birdsong, his own blood pounding by his ears. Then an obscene bleating groan, carried on the wind, past the trees, to be answered by raised heads in the herds of the valley and the far off below of a stag._

_Tawny, softening, glanced down at the Luceres boy. He was still kneeling, tapping his fingers nervously on Tawny’s hips, red faced and gulping. Tears had pricked in his eyes at the fingers in his hair and the intrusion in his jaws, his nose was running and he was panting, breathless. He allowed the satyr’s dick to fall from his mouth, and disconnected except for a string of drool, he looked less like a wolf and more like a rabbit in the hunter’s torchlight._

_He cautiously wiped more white, sticky drool from his mouth with the back of his hand. He had swallowed the remainder of the fluid that was not his own, but had come from the goat-man in warm, salty waves. He looked confused; none of this was like the kind of fresh meat he was used to devouring._

_Tawny noticed, as his senses returned, that there were goosebumps on the kid’s shoulders, despite the warm air in the summer glade. The Luceres puppy’s hackles were raised - and not only his hackles. Tawny followed the boy’s eyes down to his crotch and saw the neat little erection there._

_This was supposed to be warning, a kind of degrading lesson (and a bit of gratification for the satyr) but it had excited the boy in ways he probably didn’t understand. Tawny stroked his fingers more tenderly through the puppy’s hair. There was that urge to tenderness again, he never felt that for the young stone dwellers - he meant them no harm, but he didn’t really feel any urge to pet them, feel… protective?_

_The kid pulled himself together at last._

_He stood up, jerking his head away from the satyr's hand. “Okay, can I go now?” he asked._

_Tawny was disappointed for some reason. He shrugged. “Yeah, go - and remember, keep away from my place,” That wasn't what he wanted to say at all._

_The kid nodded, pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, suppressing a shudder and regaining his dignity, as if he felt he ought to. Then he huddled, hunched, there was a strange cracking of joints and he transformed in front of Tawny’s eyes. Tawny had never seen that; it was momentarily intriguing._

_Then the little brown wolf snarled at him in an insolent little display of defiance, twisted around and gallopped away on small pounding paws._

_Tawny wanted to call him back. He didn’t. “And tell your friends not to come here either!” he shouted into the forest in the puppy’s wake._

_Silence._

_“Remember what happens if I catch you here again!” he added, a strange desperation in his voice._

_Then there was silence again. The stream, the birds, the buzzing of insects, the wind in the reeds and the distant rush of the waterfall. For the first time ever, the glade felt empty._

_The next day, the puppy returned. Tawny grabbed him, startled, when the still relatively small wolf-boy launched himself onto his back while he was minding his own business in the reeds._

_“YOU FUCKER! What the fuck you do to me!” snarled the kid, in a strange, growling wolf voice._

_“What? Huh? Hey!! OW!” Tawny yanked his forearm back, out of the surprisingly strong little jaws, before they could fully lock. He wondered inappropriately how hot it would be to have this creature blow him, in this form, with enough control for it to be safe._

_But he had to focus. The kid was back, angry and attacking him - pushing his buttons? He was strong enough to swing the endangered arm and send the little creature flying. The puppy landed with a yelp, snarled, scrambled to his hind legs and came back for more._

_A clawed fist swung at him as the puppy came back at him upright, in a more human assault physically as well as vocally.Tawny grabbed his wrist and twisted his foreleg/arm up behind his back._

_“You fucking freak!” snarled the puppy. “What did you do?!”_

_“I told you to stay away from here, that’s what I did!” snapped Tawny,_

_A clawed hindpaw/foot scraped agonizingly down Tawny’s shin; he gasped and released the wolf-boy. Overall Tawny was capable of defending himself, and naturally strong, but generally he didn’t have to. Generally he kept himself to himself, indulged himself in stone dwellers’ fertility and shepherding rituals and had a peaceful life._

_“I warned you!” he yelled, and charged at the puppy, head down, and rammed him, knocking him back and down with his horned, tawny head. There was another yelp, the smaller creature thrashed in the grass momentarily and Tawny straddled him, pinning the forelegs up beside his head and keeping well back from a set of snapping, snarling jaws._

_“I told you. Stay away from here,” he said, sternly._

_“Why? It’s your fault! You made me feel weird, I wanna know what you did!” snarled the Luceres puppy._

_Tawny considered for a moment. He knew perfectly well what the kid was talking about. The goosebumps, the confusion, the hard little human dick. He had recognized at once exactly what making this puppy blow him on his knees had done._

_“Ah, yes, you liked that, huh?” smirked Tawny._

_The puppy rumbled a soft growl, and Tawny now witnessed him transform from wolf to human. The olive skinned Luceres boy was pinned down beneath him then, naked._

_“No,” said the boy, sullenly._

_“Liar,” smiled Tawny. “That’s why you’re back for more,”. He leaned down and brushed his mouth over the kid’s cheek, risking contact now that the wolf jaws had receded into a sculpted, beautiful little face._

_“No I’m not,”_

_“Well that’s what you're getting,”_

_Tawny flipped him over on his front with no warning. If the boy wanted to fight back and escape, he would have a better chance as a wolf than like this. The fact that he was not doing so made it obvious he did not want to. The very fact he was here proved he wanted more. He wanted everything._

_It was what they both wanted._


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlinking chapter, linking the past with the present and setting the scene for finales.

Jack opened his eyes and blew the gel-smelling hair away from his nose. It was not the tickle that had woken him, but Brock’s phone vibrating loudly on the bedside locker.

“Hey, phone,” murmured Jack, reaching out for the phone and shaking Brock’s shoulder. Brock was lying with his head level with Jack’s on the pillows, hence the tickling. He in turn awoke promptly, to Jack’s voice rather than the vibrating handset. He reached up and took his phone from Jack, his voice sounding soft and sleepy as he took his call.

“Okay… I’ll tell him,” Brock was saying after a pause. “He’s… yeah, he was here…”

Jack leaned over Brock’s shoulder, a little frown of polite puzzled interest on his face and Brock darted a look at him, furtively. “I’ll just call him… Jack!” The name was said unnecessarily loudly, as if Brock was calling Jack from another room.

Still keeping up his old routines of pretending that he and Jack were purely professional colleagues, buddies and brothers, not lovers, Jack noted. With a mixture of amusement and slight annoyance he raised his eyebrows in a pantomime of enquiry and reached for the phone.

Brock snatched it further towards his chest, childishly.

“For me?” mouthed Jack, impressively silently and subtly, though he still got a little _“Sshh_!” that could easily have brought more attention to someone’s presence than anything else.

Brock nodded curtly, tutted, and handed the phone to Jack.

It was Dr Bamber Woodhouse, from the experimental lab. The bastard who had caused all this.

“Hi,” said Jack, dully. The man proceeded to inform him that his services were required for a demolition job in two days’ time. This was a frequent enough occurrence, often Hydra related, but Jack was surprised that Woodhouse was the one contacting Brock with this information, informing him his SIC was being pulled from STRIKE for a solo mission.

It made more sense as the man added that Brock would need to come to the lab for monitoring. He was, after all, technically in the custody of Jack because of his lycanthropic condition, and if Jack was going away, Brock needed to be otherwise supervised. Jack did not like it much, nonetheless.

Brock wriggled out from under Jack’s arm, which was resting in a triangle around his head as he spoke to Woodhouse. Jack had acknowledged the situation, repeated the dates and locations and arrangements and was muttering his ‘okay thanks’ to end the communication. Jack was aware of Brock rummaging in a bag by his bed and the resulting sound of a familiar squelch.

That sound made Jack’s need to end the call even more urgent.  
“I’ve got to go, got training in the morning… Yes, with him. He’s getting there, it’s going fine… Goodnight, Dr Woodhouse,” Jack ended the call and barely had time to replace Brock’s phone on the nightstand before Brock was all over him, pushing him down with a forearm across his chest, straddling his hips with a mischievous grin.

Jack lay back and allowed his Commander to direct him. He was in one of those moods _“I’m toppin’!_ ” justifying his weird notions of masculinity and ‘roles’ and where dicks go, speaking slightly roughly like he was coaching a rookie.

_“Lie back, relax, put your leg up, open up… I’ve got you, Jackie… atta boy…”_

It made up for a week of puppy play and being the new attack dog, no doubt. It was a testament to how close Jack was to Brock, to let him take over, to let anyone guide him, to trust anyone with his pleasure, so intimately.

It was amazing how far they had come together. They were two parts of a whole.

\-------------------

_Tawny needed to set some ground rules - to test out the ground fully, too. He sat back on his haunches, still straddling the Luceres puppy-boy, who lay breathing heavily beneath him. Tawny could feel his own dick stirring and small twitches of the boy’s hips, like tiny attempts to rub off on the ground. It was proof of what had brought the kid back here and on removing his restraining hands from the boy’s wrists, Tawny noticed his arms remained where he had pinned them, above his head._

_He looked relaxed for a moment, lying on his belly in the grass as if he didn’t have a satyr sitting over his ass. Taking in the sun in the glade, taking it all in his stride._

_Tawny upped the game. He unbuckled a goatskin belt he wore around his waist. It was a gift from the priests in the temple who lead a cult in his name. It was a little bit of poor taste in some ways, giving him something made from the skin of the creatures he represented and protected and resembled - he didn’t understand why he did himself, or why he was a goat-man, it was thousands of years since his earliest lamb-memories across the sea in Hellas and he didn’t really care any more._

_“Well now, first things first,” said Tawny. “One, I told you not to come back here, two, you bit me. If you come to my glade, you come on my terms and you follow my rules.”_

_The kid snorted._

_“If you don’t, then I’m gonna punish you,” added Tawny._

_With no further preamble, he shifted off the kid, moved to the side, put one knee on the small of the puppy’s back and brought the belt down across his olive ass._

_There was a loud gasp and yelp and the kid’s hands scrabbled at the grass. Tawny hit him again with the belt._

_“Fuck!” exclaimed the boy, squirming. For a moment, there was a contorted shuddering in his wriggles and it seemed he would transform - but he didn’t. Tawny smacked the belt down a third time._

_“Ow!”_

_“This was for coming back,” Tawny informed him. “And this is for biting!”_

_He gave him a flurry of smacks with the belt, setting off a fresh series of yelps, accompanied by flinching and wriggling. There was no attempt to change, or escape, no real protest, just reflexive bitching._

_Tawny dropped the belt. The kid’s ass was flushed red and he was rubbing off subtly on the ground. He licked his lips, and did the right thing._

_“Okay, we’re even. So… are you gonna go and promise not to come back?”._

_The boy snuffled and wiped his nose on the grass. “No,” he said. “I ain’t scared of you,”_

_Tawny shrugged and straddled him again, leaning over the length of him. “Yes you are.” he whispered in the boy’s ear. “That’s why you can’t stay away,”_

_Terrible thoughts filled his head. He was used to the young stone dwellers, eager to please, taking part in their rituals. whether they knew who he was, or thought he was an elder or priest dressed up as him, they were open and willing in their devotions._

_That is to say, in the case of the boys, open with a bit of consideration. Sometimes they carried little pots of olive oil, or (again ironically) goat fat, that Faunus, as they called him, might anoint them. Or rather might work them open before he took his offerings._

_Tawny wondered if he should nip over to his sleeping place, a shelter under a big tree, and collect a little pot he had kept from this spring’s festivals. He had been using it by himself, it gave his hand a delicious glide and slide when he relaxed in the reeds._

_He decided that the Luceres kid was possibly enough of a mixture of the toughness of supernatural and the stubbornness of the subordinate that he wouldn’t bother. Next time - if there was a next time - he could let him in the shelter and introduce him to gliding and sliding with lubricants. After all, he had been a bad boy, coming back here without a by-your-leave. He would have to earn it._

_Tawny ran his hands over the flushed asscheeks and parted them. He stroked his straining, dripping cock up and down the neat little cleft. The Luceres boy shuddered and muttered “What you doin?,” into the grass._

_By way of answer, Tawny spat into his asshole. Mixing spit and his own pre-cum with his cockhead in a circle around the little pucker, he pushed in, waited for the loudest yelp and wildest wriggling he had caused yet to subside, and pushed further._

_The Luceres kid gasped, and howled. Tawny waited, easing carefully down on top of him and inside of him. He was warm and wet, and clenching tight around him, his stocky little frame surprisingly solid underneath him._

_He whimpered softly. Tawny nuzzled his ear, pushing, starting to move, soothing him with words he hardly ever used any more, in the Hellenic language the kid had no understanding of, but responded to the tone of, sighing deeply and relaxing._

_Tawny felt him, moving his own hips in time to the satyr’s, dry humping the ground in puppy fashion while Tawny fucked him in turn, semi-dry._

_When the kid came, just before Tawny, he growled in a very wolf-like manner, ending with a sweet little ypi that sent Tawny over the edge._

_They lay there for a while, spooning in the grass, the wind cooling them and carrying the rush of the waterfall._

_“What’s your name?” asked the kid, at length._

_Tawny licked his lips, several names springing to mind. Silenus, Saturos, Faunus… all of them probably associated with the stone dwellers and their customs in this boy’s mind, he realised. The Luceres and the stone dwellers were not on good terms these days. He remembered travelling to the north, to colder lands, some time ago, and remembered a name he had acquired there._

_“Rollo,” he said. “Some people call me Rollo.” It had been connected with nature, powerful nature. “It means ‘wolf’, actually, “ he chuckled. “Some folk call just me Tawny. What’s your name?”_

_“Iantherinus,” replied the boy. “It means badger,”_

_“Badger? That’s cute,”_

_“Can I come back and see you, another time?” asked the kid, insistently._

_“Well… I should think so, as long as you remember your manners,” Tawny nuzzled his neck._

_The glade did not feel so empty, now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ianthinarus means badger, and Brock also means badger.
> 
> And upon the golden altar they shall spread a cloth of blue, and cover it with a covering of badgers' skins, and shall put to the staves thereof:   
> omnia vasa quibus ministratur in sanctuario involvent hyacinthino pallio et extendent desuper operimentum ianthinarum pellium inducentque vecte   
> Numbers 4.12


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock and Jack are about to go their separate ways

Jack woke up once in the early hours. He had been dreaming about some farmland or rural area he used to visit as a very young child. It was somewhere a cousin or something lived, as far as he was aware. There were sheep.

At least that was what the last part of the dream had been about, the part right before he woke up and wondered about the parts of the dream before that, which left him confused and unsettled.

He was going away tomorrow evening, leaving Brock for a job. It was the first time he was going to be separated from Brock since the werewolf business. That was unsettling in itself.

Jack still needed to get some sleep, they had another day of STRIKE training tomorrow. He spooned firmly around Brock, who was sleeping curled up in the curve of Jack’s body. Jack slid an arm over Brock’s ribcage and nestled down.

Brock was fast asleep, breathing softly with, Jack noticed, a slight snuffle on each outward breath. That was strange; the serum was supposedly going to improve Brock’s health overall and for him to get a cold now was weird. Perhaps it was a canine/lupine illness he had picked up at the dog handling center. Probably it was not important and if it bothered Brock he would mention it to Dr Woodhouse tomorrow evening.

For now Jack stopped his brain ticking over with pointless small worries and relaxed. The tickle of Axed hair near his nose and the warmth of the compact mass he was spooning was familiar and reassuring. Jack drifted off to sleep again.

\------------------------------------------

In the morning, Brock was coming out of his en-suite shower when Jack was getting out of the bed.

Jack supposed he had better use the communal showers, as there would be no hot water in Brock’s little bathroom. Reaching for shower gel and a towel from his bag, he noticed that Brock was pulling on sweatpants.

“Aren’t you spending the day-” he waggled a finger at Brock’s general form. “The other way, as a wolf?”

Brock frowned at him sleepily, tugging his pants up. He sniffed and Jack noticed his eyes were a little rheumy.

“Yeah, I am,” Brock grabbed a STRIKE hoodie with the name ‘Rumlow’ across the back. “But I’m still leading the training,”

“Oh… okay…”

“I’m gonna be upright… two legs, the Commander - and I always lead the physical training,”  
Brock’s head emerged from the hoodie and his hands punched through to the end of the sleeves, irritably. “I’m not playing the mascot today,”

“Alright,” murmured Jack.

“I am still the Commander,” Brock added, puffing out his chest and stretching to his full barefoot five feet, nine inches of easily sparked defensive belligerence.

Jack suppressed a chuckle and stood up, moving toward him calmly and placing his hands on tense, sinewy shoulders.

“I said okay,” he said, kneading gently. “ Are you okay?”

“Fine,”

Brock sniffed, he definitely had a little summer cold. He had no allergies Jack was aware of.

Jack pressed his belly against Brock’s. It was a subtle gesture of closeness, not crowding him, his upper body was not in contact to lessen any sense Brock might have of being loomed over by six feet four of hard muscle. It just left that to Brock’s imagination more.

Jack slid his hand down the back of Brock’s sweatpants. Brock might be going to spend the day as a wolf in STRIKE commander's clothing, but he was going commando, nonetheless.

In his regular form that was pretty damn hot, Jack felt.

Brock closed his eyes momentarily and took in a snuffly breath through his nose. Jack leaned down and whispered in his ear.

“No tail yet. Just this tail.” He squeezed Brock’s left asscheek. “Fine piece of tail,”

“What the fuck you just say to me?” Brock sniffed hard. Jack could feel him tensing and bristling, somewhere between embarrassed amusement and resurfacing aggressive irritation.

Jack sucked his earlobe, just enough of a sharp pull to sting and a nibbling release. Brock tensed even more, then softened completely.

“We’ve still got just under an hour,” Jack’s voice was silky.

“... yeah…” murmured Brock, closing the gap height difference or not and reaching up to pull Jack into a reciprocal ear nuzzle.

\------------------------------

_He could do this all day._

_Badger had started coming to Tawny’s glade several times a week. That summer was one of awakening on several levels and it was the last summer of his puppyhood. His mother had been proud and excited about his approaching manhood - she had no idea how far into the ways of adulthood Badger had already travelled._

_His tribe were living in the forest. They had modest huts and a few stone dwellings like the ones in the valley, but they had adapted to a life closer to nature than they had been living for many generations prior to this time of change. They were, after all, very close to nature, being the Luceres people._

_The forest had always been a refuge and a sacred place for them, where they hunted on four legs and felt the happiest when in lupine form. But until Badger was very young, they had lived in stone dwelling down in the valley, among the Ramenses and only visited the forest._

_Badger’s mother said it was a shame, the rift that had grown between the two tribes. Her own mother, Larentia, had fostered Romulus and Remus and she had been their_ _childhood playmate, both friend and puppy. Badger’s mother wanted the enmity to end._

_Ever since the cult of Faunus had taken hold, the priests of the goat-man had stirred up fear and hate in the Ramenses for the Luceres. The wolf-people were a threat to the flocks of sheep and goats the valley people relied on, and the priests had heightened this into a superstitious dread._

_Badger’s mother warned him about the goat-man from over the sea who was the focus of this new cult. He lived in a glade by the waterfall and he was a terrible being. He was a ‘sexual predator’ who used his position to indulge in depravities with the young adults of the Ramenses._

_Badger knew this to be true. He knew much more about the goat-man than his mother did. He and his friends had often strayed to the waterfall glade, on dares. They had caught glimpses of the goat-man. Badger was cautious, at first, but not as afraid as the others._

_His mother would be horrified to find out just how close to Faunus Badger had got. She would never understand his fascination, he was certain. Her idea for healing the rift between the people in the Aritim region was to arrange a marriage for her son with the daughter of prominent Ramenses chief. He was sensibly pro-Luceres and the union of his daughter and Badger would start a change in attitudes._

_Badger was going to reach manhood on the last Harvest Moon. He was going to make a kill as a wolf, to satisfy the traditions of the Luceres, present the lamb to his future father-in-law and be married to his daughter. It was an elaborate mixing of traditions to improve the image of Luceres and join the two groups._

_It was all arranged. Badger had met the girl he was to marry. She was very nice and polite and very pretty, he could see that. But his interests lay elsewhere, in the glade by the waterfall._

_There he would come as a wolf and lay his head in the goat-man’s lap. Tawny would stroke him and pet him. There was the soft sound of buzzing dragonflies and the stream, the distant rush of the waterfall. Sometimes, his long wolf tongue would lazily lap up the drops of salt-honey from the goat-man’s cock._

_Tawny had a boner most of the time. He said it was a common thing for his kind. Badger thought it must be uncomfortable, being like that so much, but Tawny was used to it. To his credit, he always waited for Badger to become the olive-skinned boy before he did anything about it. Secretly both of them wondered what it would be like if Badger blew him with his wolf-jaws._

_But Tawny found he had boundaries he never imagined he could have and Badger knew it was possibly not the safest idea. Tawny was the one who got rough, overall and that was fine with Badger._

_He felt he could stay forever in the glade._

_When told Tawny how he felt one day, Tawny surprised him. They had never talked much about anything other than what was going on between them at any given moment. Tawny was a solitary creature - but he was a creature potentially born to live in a herd._

_It surprised him too to realise how much he might not need a herd, but he would very much like to be with Badger, as puppy and lover._

_\---------------------------------------_

The training went well. Brock-wolf appeared on the inside training mats, wearing the hoodie and sweatpants with his tail tucked into them and making a mobile bulge. He was walking on his hind legs and any initial misunderstanding about how to treat him did not last long.

He had seemed doglike yesterday, but any urge to pet his fluffy head, or generally not be under the impression that he was not in charge today was swiftly quashed. He supervised a martial arts session, choosing pairs by tapping them and pointing to the mats. He shoved the first individual that hesitated, awaiting more instruction.

He had always been very vocal in these situations, but mostly he was relying on gestures and grabbing people to stop them and correct their moves, demonstrating. He spoke a few times, in a harsh, growling voice. His ancestors spent their lives using language in two different forms, but he was still getting used to everything.

He was getting used to accessing his human personality in this state. A lot of the transformations he had had so far were spent just allowing the lupine nature to take over. His humanity had, if anything, made him simply more doglike than wild wolf. Now he was being Brock as a Brock-wolf.

It was Commander Rumlow, prowling around and coaching them. His ancestors had not been attack dogs, they were werewolves, wolf-people. From what Jack had been reading, they had also been ‘fierce chieftains’ and warlike, as a group. Brock was, in any form, a warrior.

Brock-wolf stayed back in the gym, pawing at a punching bag, when Jack collected the others for a break. Jack glanced back on the way out, watching him making clumsy strikes at the bag. That had been one of the many physical activities Brock had excelled at, after years of training and pushing himself.

Human and lupine neurology and anatomy were at war again, and Brock was learning to control both.

Jack went back to the camp gym after lunch break, and found Brock-wolf still with the punching bag. It already looked like he was getting back up to speed. It was something Jack had always loved watching him do, the grace, the speed, the muscles in use.

Jack’s dick twitched. For a moment he was horrified at himself, Brock-wolf was fluffy and lupine - not human. But he was half human, and a very familiar human - the movements were recognizable, and Brock-like. Jack pragmatically told himself that was enough to excuse it.

“You gonna come have some lunch?” called Jack.

Brock-wolf stopped what he was doing and stilled the bag with clawed paws. He was panting, his long pink tongue jerking in time to the breaths. He did not sweat like a human in this form. He nodded, paused - and came running at Jack on all fours, nearly knocking him down on contact.

Jack chuckled and felt relieved to show open affection for the doglike response. The puppy was always the easiest to deal with.

\---------------------------------------------------

Two cars came for Brock and Jack; one to take Jack to his transport to his demolitions job, the other to take Brock to the lab.

Jack got a casual text from Dr Woodhouse about the cars, which made his stomach plummet. He had ‘a bad feeling about this’, as a character in one of Brock’s favorite film series stated several times. Jack wished they were going back to his house, or even Brock’s man-pad apartment, to watch films and argue and fuck - _which they no doubt would do in a couple of days, for fuck’s sake_  - he could not shake the feeling this was too soon for them to be separated.

Jack realised just how responsible he felt for Brock generally. There was always the thought that Brock was only the capable commander and functioning human being he was because he had Jack around. Now there was another, pretty massive new issue involved. Perhaps he was not giving Brock credit, perhaps he was being sentimental… but the bad feeling would not subside.

Brock, in human form now, nodded and winked at Jack as he got into the back of the lab car. Jack grinned back at him, already in the back seat of his own car.

Jack’s car followed Brock’s onto the highway. On the outskirts of the city, they diverged, Brock’s car heading for the lab, Jack’s heading for a location on the other side of town. Jack watched the other car as it was lost in the traffic and his own headed inexorably away.

He had not felt so desolate for a long time.

\----------------------------------------

Brock was ushered into the familiar office by Woodhouse. He sat at the desk again, like a normal patient, glancing up at the familiar cluster of spider plants and succulents on a cabinet. He sniffed.

His nose was runny and blocked, and he had a dull, heavy feeling behind his eyes, the start of a headache that wasn’t quite coming to much. It was the first thing he mentioned as Dr Woodhouse sat.

“I thought this performance enhancer would mean I don’t get sick,” Brock sounded a little resentful.

Woodhouse peered at him thoughtfully. “Well… this is why this is a good opportunity to get you in and see what's going on. As we know, this hasn’t been just a straightforward enhancement - you’ve got a lot going on besides that. It might be things aren’t totally settled down one way or another... It might be you’ve picked up something related to dogs, wolves,” he waved his finger in a circle towards Brock. “I was hoping to run some tests while you were here. Perhaps we should get some bloods and see what’s going on,”  
Brock nodded. That sounded reasonable; might as well get things checked out.

\-----------------------------------

“Paramyxovirus,” said Woodhouse, putting a small tablet showing a microbiology report under Brock's face.

Brock was sitting in a small examination room, gowned and feeling light headed and uncomfortable again. Bloods had been taken, an MRI scan to check Brock’s general state and see if anything had changed in the last few days.

“Canine distemper,” added Woodhouse, when Brock’s forehead creased a little. “You probably picked it up at the dog handling center,”

“That was fast,” muttered Brock. He had a vague notion that blood tests on viruses took a while, days, weeks. Probably from watching some documentary, or from something Jack had mentioned reading about. But hey, this was Hydra deep science, after all.

But he also immediately wanted to argue that surely the dogs at the handling center were well cared for, had all their shots… For some reason he felt Woodhouse’s usually reassuring, cheerful manner was anything but reassuring.

Last time he was here Jack was there, looming and flaring his nostrils and acting like Woodhouse was the most suspicion-worthy miscreant ever. It was kind of embarrassing, even if it was kind of cute. Perhaps Jack was right to distrust the man, it wasn’t just Jack acting like that because someone else had got the upper hand with insight and control over Brock in this situation.

Perhaps he was just out of sorts. Distemper.

Two men entered the room, lab techs or medical staff, Brock shifted on the couch. At least it wasn’t the cold metal one under his ass this time, but he still felt exposed and weird in his backless hospital gown. One of them started prepping his arm for a shot - what was the point of that if he already had dog-flu?

“It’s against other strains,” said the man. Brock had spoken the last aloud.

The room began to swim - shots, serums, his own biology, everything acted fast these days, reactions to shots, fucking werewolf transformations. Everything was going too fast, and generally Jack would be there, to keep him focused…

One of the men was holding his face, checking his pupils, running a hand down his arm, then spine. Brock felt twitchy, and shivery, it was just like when he changed, except he had learned to control that almost at once.

He was sure the hand was lingering. Groping his ass… he lashed out, and was restrained expertly, by the two men.

" _Fine piece of tail,” Jack… you didn’t just say that… someone said that, in Las Vegas, years ago._

Brock struggled against the men. He growled. “Fuck off, Matt…”

*“Is this part of it? Like hallucinations?”

“Possibly, delirium. Get him in the cage, now,”

They were pulling Brock off the couch, holding his arms and upper body, to half-carry, half-drag him out of the small room. It was a relief, in a way, to be pulled, and feel like falling for a second, and have them take his weight. Brock wasn’t sure if he would have fallen, or floated away if they hadn’t been taking charge.

It was a relief, in a way, but it should have been Jack…

Initially, Brock’s bare feet trailed on the corridor floor as they took him to another small room. By the time they reached the room, those feet were elongated, clawed and dragged either side of a drooping, fluffy black tail.

It was the Brock-wolf they placed in a cage in the room, to curl up, dazed and confused, nosing towards a soft blue blanket for reassurance, before he passed out completely.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One sick puppy.

Woodhouse and two other health professionals entered the side room behind four guards armed with tranquilizers. All of them were wearing the kind of protective all-in-one body-suits and respirator masks associated with infectious diseases.

The guards spread out, two close to each side wall, the tranq guns trained on a large dog cage against the far wall. Woodhouse stood with the two other men in the center. The two men stared at the cage for a few moments of understandable shock.

They were a human physician and a veterinarian, and they had been prepared for what they were going to see in here. They were both Hydra-affiliated and therefore to be trusted with Woodhouse's strange project. They were also both stunned. Shock, awe, disbelief, wonderment and excitement vied in their minds before their faces settled on professional interest.

Both wondered briefly why they were needed; each assumed the other was more appropriate.

In the cage lay the real life werewolf Woodhouse had briefed them on. He was sprawled in the cage, his body curled, but his limbs spread as if to achieve a cooling effect. His snout was resting on a blanket and he rubbed his nose on it twice in the seconds the men were taking in the scene.

“You can examine him now,” said Woodhouse, encouragingly.

The physician looked uncertain. The creature looked overall to be a wolf. “Not sure you need me,” he muttered.

The veterinarian moved over and knelt down. The cage door was fully open.

“You know the situation,” Woodhouse was saying to the physician.

The veterinarian put his hand in the cage and placed it lightly on the wolf’s head. Brock raised his head a few inches and let out a low, rumbling growl. It was a strange sound, more like a purr. The lower part of his tail raised and brushed feebly in an attempt at a wag.

“Hey there, big guy,” murmured the animal doctor. He looked back at the others and jerked his head towards the patient. “Dr Willis, get a feel of this,”

The physician came and joined him, his movements slow and cautious. This did not seem the type of patient he was used to in the first place - whatever he now knew about lycanthropy being a genetic predisposition, however much after hearing Woodhouse explain this it had seemed exciting and interesting - now seeing the oddly-shaped, overly large sick dog, well... this seemed so much like a job for the veterinarian.

At his medical counterpart’s suggestion, he placed his hand on the creature’s thick, furry neck.

“Raised temperature…” he observed.

The animal doctor nodded, grinning, like he had a promising student. “Raised.” he confirmed. “Anything else?”

 “Clammy - febrile-” the physician rubbed a gloved thumb gently above one of the creature’s eyes. “Discharge, from the eyes and nose,” Brock’s honey-amber wolf eyes were rheumy, with a slightly yellow discharge streaking the fur either side of the top of his snout. His nose pad was dry-looking, the usually leathery patterned skin looked cracked, like a dried lake bed. There was more discharge, caked under his nose but still oozing from the nostrils, fresh and wet and warm. His mouth was open, his breathing laboured and his tongue had the same dry, bas-relief salt lake quality as his nose pad.

“What would you do with a person with these symptoms?” asked the animal doctor.

“Fluids, treatment for the respiratory symptoms… I’d say in an intensive care unit - would you agree?”

The veterinarian stroked Brock’s head. “At this stage… I’d euthanize,”

\-------------------------------

Arless had come to STRIKE Team Alpha eighteen years ago. A former Marine with comprehensive skills, including communications and information technology, he had become a respected member of the team, second when Jack stood in for Brock and the one Jack would trust with almost anything.

That was no mean thing to be; Jack was far harder to impress than Brock in so many ways.

Brock was the Commander and Jack the SIC when Arless came; they were well established and seamless driving forces, individually and even more so as a pair. Arless gained the respect of both quickly with his technical expertise, general Special Forces training - and Jack was particularly taken with his stolid efficiency at work.

Jack had trusted Arless to co-ordinate the counter-surveillance of Dr Woodhouse. Jack had also entrusted Arless with the task of getting the frequency of Brock’s lab microchip and making a scanner for it. He had managed that easily, during the evening barbecue at the STRIKE training camp.

Sitting under a tree, he had been joined by Brock-wolf, who stretched out contentedly by him. It was the moment to scan the chip and he did it, surreptitiously, though Brock-wolf did not appear to notice. It was designed not to be noticed by dogs wearing the implants, and to be scanned.  
It was slightly more difficult to make a scanner - harder than the usual _Encrypted FriendChip_  scanner. It was heavily modified and giving off more than one signal. But Arless managed it.

He prepared to communicate with Jack, who would be at his destination by now, somewhere in Central America, doing his demolitions solo job.

Arless had a great deal of respect for Brock and Jack. He also held a secret fascination with them. Not long after he came to STRIKE, in the late nineties, he had been setting up and modifying a closed-circuit camera system for the training camp.

Checking the TV monitors that would show ever changing multi-angle shots of the rooms, he saw Brock enter his office, gesticulating and speaking animatedly to Jack, who was following close behind.

There was no sound.

Brock stood and faced Jack near his desk, still saying something. Jack said nothing, but did not stop walking when Brock did, barging into him and pushing him up against the wall, hard. There was more gesticulation from Brock, and an attempted swing of his right arm was blocked, then both arms slammed up against the wall, by Jack.

Arless was startled. The Commander and the SIC were a tight pair, a two-man team within the team, and seemed to be great buddies as well. Without thinking - no, just curious, Arless stopped the three point ten second alternating views and locked on the camera that gave him a side on view.

Slightly angled, this view gave him more of the side/back of Jack and - zooming in - a good front view of Brock.

Brock thrashed against the wall once, violently, and Jack raised his knee, pushing his thigh up between Brock’s legs. Arless watched, his head on one side, entranced, as this did not seem to be the precursor to some kind of vicious brawl - or assault on the Commander, more precisely.

There was no-one who could gain any upper hand when Jack crowded and pinned and used his weight like that, not even Brock, an expert fighter.

Further zooming in revealed Brock’s face, his teeth bared in a snarl, while Jack bent his head and looked down, obviously speaking at last. Brock’s tongue darted to lick the corner of his mouth and the snarl became, if anything, more feral.

Arless panned down. Brock was moving again, grinding his crotch down into Jack with hard, jerky movements. The fabric of Jack’s uniform pants would have a decent friction for that, Arless surmised… even more so the massive, muscular thigh itself. Nonetheless, Brock was really riding it, his feet leaving the floor on each forward thrust.

Arless watched, his own mouth open and his dick twitching from the vicarious pleasure of watching this unexpected Real Life Porn.

Brock convulsed on the thigh and against the wall, snarling again momentarily, then relaxing, a blissed-out, white toothed grin spreading. Well, it looked like he needed that...

Jack was moving back and unfastening his pants. Lack of sound was unimportant, a well worn routine was playing out, Brock slumped forward, using Jack’s weight to brace and slide to his knees, reaching for the SIC’s dick and getting his mouth around it, licking like a dog with a bone before devouring it.

Arless panned down with Brock. He couldn’t quite remember loosening his own pants. At some point he had slid his hand into them and was stroking himself. He jerked off slowly, in time to the slobbering, hungry blow job he could see, could not hear, but was the hottest thing he had seen in forever.

He respected Brock and Jack. He only watched the CCTV sometimes after that; he had standards, and accidentally seeing that was different from seeking it out. There were things he had heard from their room at other times that he would rather not hear. Nothing matched that unintentional viewing anyway.

But he remained an invaluable member of STRIKE team Alpha, and now he was going to report to Jack that Brock was in the Hydra lab, as expected, but just then the signal disappeared. Gone off the grid - then picked up again, the co-ordinates having changed and indicating travel.

That was weird and disturbing and not the arrangement. He called Jack.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something was not right. There was something wrong and his brain wouldn’t switch, he couldn’t reach the patch of light that contained his human reason.

Brock-wolf shuddered awake in the metal cage. He had been dreaming, jumbled images of the ancient forests and hillside mingled with clearer ones he identified as memories. The memories were short and sharp.

 _A pear shaped stain on the couch...running his finger along a curved horn to its base in tawny curls... his Nona put a plate of pesto pasta in front of him, then his favorite dessert, it was too much really, but he was starving. She looked so happy… Tomorrow night would be the harvest moon and he would be married, it was overwhelming. The last night with his mother and she looked so happy_.

They kept weaving in and out of the soft-focus past life or race memory images, like modern photos against grainy captured history.

 _There was fruit on his Nona’s table. Far too much and it kept increasing. The stream flowed too fast, bursting with an autumn rainfall. Too much, too fast_ …

“Hey, there,” the animal doctor reached in and scratched him behind the ear. “Looking much better, feeling better, buddy?”

Brock-wolf was lying on his belly in the cage. There was some kind of soft, absorbent sheeting underneath him and his head had been on a blue blanket. The blanket was stained with dried mucous and several spots of blood.

Brock-wolf opened crusty-feeling eyes and raised his head. A flicker of unease passed through the animal doctor’s feature at the movement. But he spoke again, keeping up the reassuring ear scratches.

“You’re really strong, you’ve come through this. Just like Bamber said you would.” he knelt back on his haunches, reaching out to remove a IV from a cannula in Brock-wolf’s paw. A small patch of fur had been shaved away to allow the cannulation, leaving a square of olive wolf-skin.

The animal doctor patted his knee. “Try and stand up,” he suggested.

Brock-wolf shuffled and moved. He obeyed the suggestion unquestioningly. It was easy in this state, to follow instruction. He had a glimmering of awareness that this animal doctor and the other one, the regular human doctor had been with him all night. They had seemed to be taking care of him.

He did feel better. He was shaky as he rose to a kneeling position, mixing and matching human and lupine techniques and positions to haul himself into a quadrupedal standing position in the large cage. He felt two legs would bring his head too far from the ground and make him dizzy. He felt his knees would buckle taking all his upright weight.

It made him more familiar to the vet. He was trained to deal with creatures more or less like this.

 “Shall we take a little walk through to the lab?” he suggested. “Slowly does it,”

In the lab, Dr Woodhouse and a technician shepherded Brock-wolf into the MRI scanner. He walked in quadrupedally, like a dog. The animal doctor placed a set of headphones over his ears and draped a towel over his head. He said the music would distract him and that the towel was a source of reassurance for most of his usual patients.

The music was fine. Brock-wolf recognized some of it, as it was a shuffle mix from the animal doctor’s own phone. Still dazed with distemper and fever, he was happy to drift off. Even the muffled background cacophony of two huge magnets, struggling like two twenty-four ton ferrets in a sack, was soothing...

_"Screaming in the dark I howl when we're apart.... Drag my teeth across your chest and taste your beating heart."_

A line of one song shook him out of it. His hackles rose. He was on alert from then on, in the fear driven mode of his wolf side. No-one noticed, he slunk out of the scanner when the animal doctor beckoned him and waited. Something was not right. There was something wrong and his brain wouldn’t switch, he couldn’t reach the patch of light that contained his human reason.

When Bamber Woodhouse spoke the Brock-wolf found a focus for the disquiet. He was not supposed to be here, without... his place was with... ( _tawny curls)..._ Jack. He was… supposed to be with _other_ humans, as a wolf, as a man. It was all Woodhouse’s fault.

Baring his teeth, he turned sharply towards the man, Woodhouse.

He reared up on two legs. Two legs were better than four for ( _punching the man’s teeth down his throat_ ) tearing his throat out.

“Hey! Stop that! Stand down!” cried Woodhouse.

“Easy,” this from the veterinarian.

“SHIT!” “Holy shit!” exclaimed the human physician and the technician, in unison.

Four armed guards stepped forward, guns raised towards the creature.

That snapped him out of it. That was something he was familiar with too. That was something he had done himself, and had done to him. There was no escape from skilled humans with guns like that.

Not the way Brock-wolf was feeling.

He snarled at them and backed away. They followed, encircling.

Brock-wolf backed into the wall. He could feel himself changing. He had not done it deliberately this time, it responded like a defense mechanism.

Brock Rumlow slid down the wall and raised his hands in surrender. He was shaking and sweating again. In human form, the effects of the distemper seemed to cling; he felt even less well recovered now.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. He looked defeated and tearful.

Dr Woodhouse shook his head irritably. “Take him back to the cage,”

\-----------------------------------

_Tawny stood on the hillside. He could see a small bloom of smoke in the distance, from the stone dwellers’ settlement across the valley._

_He had heard the wolf-alarm; the horn they blew when a wolf was spotted. He was supposed to respond. For fuck’s sake, hadn't he shown them how to supervise and herd the flocks, in the time of their great-grandparents?_

_They knew how to get the sheep and goats into their safe stockades. They didn’t need him._

_He was busy, packing. He was going to visit the Northern lands again, where he was called Rollo. It was the best thing for him and the best thing for Badger._

_It was Badger’s wedding day tomorrow. It would unite the people, the Ramenses and the Luceres. The Lupine folk and the ‘Straights’, as Badger called them. Badger would have a good life, it was the best thing to do._

_Tawny heard the horns again. Three notes, deeper and fuller than the wolf alarms. More than one horn and harmony._

_The moon was halfway to the top of its evening climb, full and slightly golden. A harvest moon.It was autumn, and Badger was going to have his coming of age rituals, combine them with his wedding…_

_Tawny frowned. They had sounded the wolf alarm, They were now sounding the call for Tawny to come to the Lupercalia, as Faunus, come among them and accept his offerings._

_His sacrifices. Two goats and a dog - or if they could get one, a wolf. A wolf who was also a man was even better..._

_But it was not that time of year. It was autumn, and the moon was climbing golden, almost copper. It was supposed to be Badger’s wedding day._

_Badger was in trouble. Tawny ran towards the sound of the horns._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Line from the song 'Howl' by Florence and the Machine
> 
> This chapter leads into Under My Skin by Bekaylo  
> Fandoms:Captain America (Movies)  
> Not RatedUnder My Skin by Bekaylohttp://archiveofourown.org/users/Bekaylo/pseuds/Bekaylo


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Auribus Teneo Lupum. To catch a wolf by his ears - pretty much as stupid as to catch a tiger by his tail...

Jack hung back after his return to the Triskelion and subsequent de-briefing. He met Arless and the remainder of the STRIKE team in the cafeteria, as if to be filled in on the rest of the training he and Brock had been removed from. In reality they were discussing the disappearance of Brock. Arless urged him to have a coffee while they talked.

Jack sat, tense and wearing a grim expression that indicated hell was going to be unleashed - and Jack didn’t want to wait to unleash it.

Arless showed him the tracker for Brock’s ‘ _Encrypted Friendchip_ ’, the regular pet dogs’ microchip Woodhouse had given him. It showed coordinates indicating Brock had been removed to further south in Virginia during the night.

“It’s a clinic,” explained Arless. “An animal hospital and rehab clinic - run by Dr. Jonathan Holton. He is Hydra… Woodhouse has worked there, he was using the facilities to test his enhancement serums on chimps some time last year.”

“We should get going,” Jack downed half of his coffee and lunged forward to stand, one green eye blazing, the other hard and glacial.

“Wait, there’s more,” Arless held up a hand and Jack rolled his eyes, sitting back down. “There was a report, last night, Dr Woodhouse informed Pierce that Rumlow was experiencing some side effects and that the best course of action was to take him to an animal clinic for treatment. Woodhouse is lying about something; we have to report this to the Director.”

Jack rose from his seat once again, with an irritable shake of his head. “You can do that on the way.”

___________________________

Woodhouse crouched down in Brock’s cell. Brock was sitting in his cage, back to the wall, in human form. He looked exhausted and decidedly ill.

“You really need to change into your wolf form,” said Woodhouse. “You’ve got resistance to illness almost to super-soldier levels, now, but your wolf-form is even stronger. You need to change,”

Brock snorted. “I wanna know what the fuck is going on. I want to know,” he rubbed his eyes.

“Sure, but you’d be better off as a wolf for now. You’ll have a relapse. I know you’re strong as a man, now - thanks to me - but not as strong as you are as a wolf. You know… the thing is, I gave the distemper,”

Brock pierced him with a fierce hazel glare that would have wilted the average recruit, or anyone else who had a desire to live. But only for a split second. That kind of defiant outrage was something from the distant past of a week ago. Way back seven days ago, before Ancient Etrurian wolf genes, serums and Brock’s own hubris reduced him to a freak in a wolf cage. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at Woodhouse with dull resentment.

“I am being honest and open here,” continued Woodhouse. “I knew you’d be fine and come through. I just needed to have the evidence of the illness and your recovery to show you off to some friends of mine.”

“Friends..?”

“People who can use your DNA to create more super-soldiers. That strength from your lycanthrope gene plus the serum, it’s made you into something even better than we imagined. Remember when you signed up for this?”

“I did not sign up for any of this,”

“You signed up to ‘participate in an enhancement program in line with the principles of Hydra and Hydra deep science’.” Woodhouse made italic gestures with his forefingers and waved his hands around to demonstrate the lofty, nebulous statement Brock had made in his application.

“We’ve ended up with a result more remarkable than either of us could have imagined. Don’t you want that to be used to create something remarkable, for Hydra?”

Brock shrugged. “Sure. But why am I in a fucking cage?”

Woodhouse smiled. “There was a possibility you could be unpredictable, with your illness. Which proved to be true, didn’t it? Thing is, you need to relax and recover completely. As long as you know there are people here taking care of you, you can relax more as a wolf. Come on, let me give you a little something to relax you and you can rest. As a wolf.”

Brock sighed. “Then can I go? When you’ve taken samples or whatever, or when these people get what they want?”

“Of course,” Dr Woodhouse edged closer on his knees. “Give me your arm,”

Brock was still cannulated, and Woodhouse used the little port to inject something. No more needles needed.

He felt light headed at once.

“Okay… want to try turning for me?” Woodhouse’s voice sounded distorted. Brock rested the back of his head against the wall. It was easy to change this time. Dr Woodhouse was right, the wolf form felt like a welcome refuge. The sedative took the edge off the lupine wariness and there was no reason not to just relax, and go with it… if he was lucky he might see the hillsides and forests again, on the edge of dreams.

\-----------------------------------

The quinjet landed in a field, as close to a border of woodland as possible. The STRIKE team maintained the covert nature of their rescue mission in a rural but populated area with stealth as they progressed across the field, among sleeping cows.

Halfway across, guns were raised and a defensive pattern formed at the threatening presence of a huge bull.

Jack raised his hand in a signal for quiet and stillness. The bull was between them and the most expedient exit. It made a low, grunting sound, precursor to a deep, warning bellow.

Something flickered in the back of Jack’s head. _Tell the others, warn the herd. Stay away from my girls._

He was not interested in the cows _(why the fuck would he be?)_ and he offered no threat or challenge to the bull. ( _All cloven hoofed, all good.)_  There was no problem here, no ( _beef - shut up Rollins_ ).

“... we’re all friends here.”

Arless was looking at him strangely, then looking nervously back at the bull, which had lowered its head… and was grazing, suddenly, casually, as if the instinctive protective aggression of its kind had been switched off like a light.

“Let’s go,” ordered Jack, softly.

Cautiously, they moved towards the side of the field that lead to the country lane they were bound for. There was nothing more from the bull - except, young Jon was convinced he saw the animal’s front legs bend ever so slightly at the knee as Jack passed, recklessly close.

Jon was pretty sure Jack’s fingers trailed feather-light over the bull’s flank, in a gesture that carried a blessing.

They reached the lane.

\--------------------------------------

All was mostly quiet in Greenleaves Animal Hospital. Two veterinary nurse were on duty, an animal doctor on call for if necessary. All the animal patients were currently well-recovered surgical cases.

There were a few snuffles and whimpers, two kitten patients awake and playing in their cages, comfortable but nocturnally inclined.

In the restricted area and experimental lab - which the nurses on duty at this time understood was mainly for isolation and intensive care for animals with rabies or other infectious diseases - there was also quiet. There was currently one occupant, Brock-wolf, in a cage within a locked room.

He was lying with his nose in his paws, clean absorbent lining under him and a clean blanket under his jaws. There was a ball in the cage that the animal doctor had given him after Woodhouse left.

Nice idea, Brock-wolf hoped the lab techs would throw it for him tomorrow. Somehow it seemed that was a forlorn hope. All they were interested in were scans and seeing how strong and fast he was, not in a playful way at all.

It was easier not to think at all, or entertain any hope. He was stuck here and it was easier to access that side of his mind that brought images of woods and hills and the smell of cypresses. Even that was something bittersweet, something echoing down from race memories, disjointed and long gone.

\--------------------------------

_Tawny stood on the eastern hill. The horns were blaring again, frantic this time._

_He ignored them._

_When the soft growls and padding feet interrupted his bitter musings he acknowledged the company that surrounded him. He mostly focused on the leader, a beautiful white she-wolf._

_Larentia, named for her mother who had sheltered the stone dwellers’ current ruler._

_“Shall I?” she asked._

_“Ita,” replied Tawny, solemnly. “Hoc est, nox tua. Isti qui oves sun vobis.”_

_The Luceres, in wolf form, passed around Tawny and proceeded down the hill, rising as one to two legs in wolf form. The hunt was on, for two-legged sheep._

_Tawny looked up at the full moon, the first after the harvest moon. “In nomine Ianthinarus,” he sighed. “Badger…”._

_He turned his back on the village, and the warlike howling, and the ensuing screams. He would never pass among them again. He walked to the waterfall, never to pass that way again._

\-------------------------------

STRIKE Team Alpha huddled at the side of Greenleaves Animal Hospital. All their specialist training and combined experience focused on breaking into a pets’ rehab clinic, all their tactics discussed, it was Arless who made the first move in their hastily put together plan.

He was the one who had researched the place - just from its public website initially, then hacking into city planning and electricity and water information for schematics of the building.

He sent young Jon, the recruit, to get the door to the exercise yard open. Jack was impressed with Jon’s breaking and entering skills; it brought to mind Brock when they met. The memory of the that younger Brock, a mixture of little asshole and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell trauma, complete with delinquent past - raw, promising, fascinating with a prehensile tongue - prompted Jack into iron resolve.

The black-uniformed team passed through a corridor in single file, then fanned out into an open area. There was a strong medicinal, disinfectant smell mixed with the pungent undertone of zoology.

Lights sweeping over the area reflected in the retinas of several caged animals.

 _“Mrrrrpp_ …”

Jack found himself aiming his rifle at a tiny calico kitten.

“We should set them free…” murmured Jon.

“They are the patients,” whispered Arless. “Idiot,”

“Nurses’ station,” declared Jack, and beckoned them on.

From the animal’s ‘ward’ area, they burst into a lighted room, where two animal nurses gasped, one frozen with fear at a small table, the other leaping to her feet and knocking her chair over.

“Stay where you are,” Jack ordered them. The others converged on them, Jack and Jon glancing around for threats.

“Where is Commander Rumlow?” snapped Arless at the nurse still seated at the table.

“W-who…?”

\---------------------------------------------

Brock-wolf raised his head, slowly. Shaken out of a doze with the sound of pipes and the wind through the reeds in his head, he could still smell the Cypresses and… something alkaline, woody and musky.

It was there, the same scent, not lingering from his dream but really filling his sensitive, twitching nostrils.

Jack…

Adrenaline coursed through him. He was upright in seconds, grasping the bars of his cage and shaking, wrenching. He put his hind-paw up on a bar for greater purchase, pulled and twisted with all the strength of his lupine form, all the technique of his default human state.

The bars would not yield. This cage was clearly of specialist design - he could guess what Abominations/Hulks/Supersoldiers the makers of this cage had in mind in its design.

“ _Uuuuggg!”_ he roared.

He grasped the bars again, threw back his head and howled…

\-------------------------------------

The two nurses and the STRIKE team froze momentarily. A deep, resonant howling like that of a wolf - or in fact like something out of a horror movie - echoed through the animal clinic. At once, the cry was taken up by several dog patients from the animal recovery area.

Everyone’s hair stood up. It was the call of wild. It was the signal to flee _(must warn the others, the herd)_ , and it was the call to hunt, a double impulse in the humans. The dogs were growling and barking, now, as well as answering with their own howls,thousands of years of selective breeding resulting in the same split responses, domesticity vs. nature.

Jack snapped out of it first. “Brock…”

Just as seven armed men, dressed similarly to the STRIKE team, burst into the room.

\---------------------------------

Brock-wolf heard shots. He could smell Jack, he could hear gunfire and shouting. It went straight to the human part of his mind; he needed to be with Jack in what he could hear. Controlling the frantic urges to scratch and claw futilely at his prison, to snap and bite at the bars, he steadied his breathing. His pounding heartbeat became a ticking timer, a reminder of the urgency of the situation.

He could hear Jack’s voice, years ago, telling him to stay calm, stay focused, less haste, more speed, work fast but use your head…

He placed a long, curved claw in the locking mechanism. Memories of adrenaline, past urgency, breaking in, being rewarded for taking what was not his. Remembering that one sure thing to get Jack’s approval was the use of his street-kid cunning in adult life covert ops.

Twist, feel, click…

\----------------------------------------

There was a brief fight in the nurses’ station area. The two clinic employees, to their credit, threw themselves under the table.

The armed men were no match for Jack and the others, whoever they were.

It was almost an unnecessary coda when a door to the restricted area burst open and a creature of myth hurtled out, upright and snarling. Jack already had the man closest to him pinned to the wall, disarmed, when something slammed into his shoulder, knocking him sideways and there was a crunching, a gurgling from his former assailant.

Brock-wolf had closed his long, clawed fingers/front metatarsals around the man’s throat and crushed it, trachea, blood vessels and cervical vertebrae yielding alike.

There were screams, shouts of alarm, non-STRIKE guns raised. Jon grabbed and twisted the arm of one of the newcomers, disarming him and pinning him in one fluid move.

Brock-wolf turned, growling and leaping through the air, grabbing two men and smashing their heads together, stabbing his claws into the throat of a third, lifting him then slamming him down, dead.

Jack shot a fourth in the head before he could do the same to Brock-wolf.

Then there was quiet in the animal clinic for a few moments. Relative quiet, at least, frightened muttering from the animal nurses under the table, some yipping and scratching from the animal’s room.

 _“Mrrrrpp_ ,” - this from one of the kittens, its high pitched tone standing out among the deeper sounds; Brock-wolf panting, muttering from the STRIKE team and a couple of moans from the intruders who still lived.

Brock-wolf abruptly turned and crossed to Jack in two paces, two legged and upright. He made as if to throw his arms around his neck, paused, and dropped into a dog sitting position.

Jack knelt down and put his arms around the werewolf, petting him. Brock-wolf gave a shuddering sigh and snorted.

“Well done,” murmured Jack. “Good job… Where’s Woodhouse, any idea?”

“Good question,” growled Brock-wolf, speaking perfectly in lupine form, just like his forebears in the hills and forests of ancient Etruria.

 

 

 

 

 

“

 

 

 

“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ita = Do so  
> “Hoc est, nox tua. Isti qui oves sun vobis." = This night is yours. These sheep are yours.  
> "In nomine Ianthinarus" = In Badger's name.
> 
>  
> 
> Please feel more than free to correct any of this pig-Latin!


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr Woodhouse is running out of time and options.

* _Tawny lay on his side by the reeds, one hand propping up his head, the other stroking over olive skin that embodied a renewed belief in miracles. It was a miracle, how the hair follicles reacted with goosebumps from his touch, from the stream droplets in the wind. It was a miracle that those follicles could react and sprout long, glossy fur when their owner made his special switch._

_It was a miracle that Badger had become his greatest muse. It seemed amazing to Tawny, an ancient son of nature, that there were still miracles in the world._

_Badger was a miracle of nature, a man who was a wolf, a wolf who was a man - a fusion like Tawny, but human. A small group of reproducing hybrids, the Luceres were a miracle._

_...Mortal..._

_Tawny knew he had no right to keep this beautiful creature to himself. He had a life to live._

_“But I don’t want to get married,” Badger was still talking about the arrangements his mother had made. “I don’t want to marry that stone dweller, at any rate,”_

_Tawny quelled his happiness at that statement. He was old and wise - and it was damn well high time he acted it and fulfilled his role (he still had a vague idea he had a role, it was so long since it was really clear, but he knew it was not just mooching around in a glade and gratifying his near-permanent satyr boner.)_

_“But your mother is a sensible lady, Badger. This union will end the conflict between your people and the non-wolf folk. Besides… don’t you want a good life? You are the prince of your people, you and that Ramenses girl would be great leaders and important figures - plus, you know, in a few years, some little pups might come along… skittering of tiny claws…”_

_Tawny nestled down and pulled Badger close._

_“There won’t be ‘pups’.” Badger said, dully. “Only human children. The gift is not passed to children unless we mate with others like us,”_

_“Oh I don’t know, I don’t think something like that would just fade away in one generation.” mused Tawny. He had knowledge of what people would later call ‘genetics’, but he had no full explanation of it in any terms that would make sense to Badger - and, like everything else, it was awareness dulled by time for Tawny. “Something would be passed down,”_

_“I want to be with you,” Badger’s eyes pricked with tears. “I don’t wanna be the instrument of union, or the father of kids that can’t run on four legs - I don’t wanna be a sacrifice for the - the good of the wolves, or the stone dwellers.”_

_“Sometimes the things we don’t want turn out to be the things that work out best,” said Tawny. He remembered someone else saying that to him - and he remembered that was_

_the reason he crossed a sea and wandered in other lands and wound up in a glade, all by himself, until he forget what it was to care about anything._

_“Bullshit!” snapped Badger. He wriggled out of Tawny’s embrace and backed away on all fours, snarling through his human teeth._

_“Mind your blasphemy,” chuckled Tawny, reaching for him lazily; this kind of elusive wriggling and puppy snarling was often the signal for some of their best games._

_Badger slapped his hand away._

_“The stone dwellers got one thing right; you’re a horny old goat and nothing matters to you but fucking and playing music!” Badger was starting to change, the miracle of the little brown wolf that captured the heart of a satyr starting to appear before him._

_“Badger…”_

_“I’ll go, I’ll marry her, and I’ll be a big shot and stop your stupid goat-festivals! And then you can just stay here and be a sad old goat!” Badger bolted at a wolf-gallop and Tawny was alone._

_It was the best thing, for Badger, but this was not the way Tawny had hoped things might end. He lay on his back, looking up at the trees. The sun was slanting through the leaves in the late summer afternoon, and soon it would be autumn._

_The cries of startled birds off in the forest were the last evidence of Badger’s retreat. Then there was nothing but the wind in the reeds and the babbling of the stream, the distant rush of the waterfall._

_Something sparked in the back of Tawny’s mind, about the waterfall, and solutions - but the thought didn’t take shape. For now there was just the glade, and Tawny, and the usual sounds, all hollow and empty._

_For now it seemed that was all there ever would be._

_********_

_Badger stopped running when the sorrow reached the point of choking him, when it drained all the adrenalin and brought him to a skittering halt in a mossy clearing and he sat, slowly. He was one of those born in ancient times to change between two forms and states, switch between two physiologies as easily as regulating his heartbeats._

_The problem was there was no escape from the human reason and its attendant emotional baggage, not for one who was born to this and raised with this._ _The human part of his mind was desolate right now._

_The sharp call of a night-bird startled him and left both sides of him shivering. The moon was rising; he had been running in (Panic) for several miles. He was on the eastern edge of the Atirim plain, far from the forest the Luceres inhabited. Beyond the hills were bigger stone dweller settlements, the ones his mother’s foster brothers now ruled as kings._

_It was probably not safe to be here._

_He looked around. There was evidence of an abandoned village of some kind here. He could make out ruined huts of the wooden sort that everyone used to have._

_A tall, momentarily reassuring, shape to the left of him gave him a second of bright hope. *You came, you found me!* then had him rising to all fours, tense, hackles rising._

_He stood, sniffing. There was no scent other than metal, there was no life in the form of Tawny as he stood, a long spear or staff at rest on his shoulder and down his arm, the casual wielding of a weapon depicted in cast bronze. The other hand was raised in blessing, or a gathering gesture - but it clearly represented no blessing for Badger._

_At Tawny’s feet was a lifeless lupine creature, part of the sculpture. It was a statue, of Tawny, as a shepherd, guarding the flock, keeping the wolf at bay._

_“...at bay,”_

_Badger flinched visibly, as his own mother’s voice spoke beside him; informing his assessment before he realised that’s how he made it._

_“What are you doing out here?” asked Larentia, standing beside him in her wolf form, white fur flecked with gold and silver._

_Badger shook his head and dropped his snout in deference and misery._

_“This was one of the oldest sites of the goat-worship,” said Larentia, her voice a soothing growl. “Most of their effort and craft went into making things like this statue. While they lived in shacks and hunted people like us. This was where all the problems today began, in places like this, where they kept animals and hated the predators with a superstitious dread._

_“This was where the Cult of Faunus originated, the worship of the goat creature who protected the flocks. He was seen as a guardian-warrior and they would sacrifice regular_ _wolves to him. If they could get one of our kind, all the better.”_

_Badger looked up, peering closely at the oxidised features of the old statue of Faunus wearing face of Tawny. This was the true face of the tawny goat-man who had been using him all summer. Who had failed to mention he was also a cult figure called Faunus, to whom wolves were sacrificed._

_The wind in the reeds in the secluded glade, the pipes, the big hands and soft, tawny fur - that was just bait, to lure him in. It was fake, as fake as the bronze figure in this deserted place, this oxidised idol with moss around its feet - along with the moulded form of a slain wolf._

_Badger could smell nothing but rust and metal, moss and corruption from this statue. The only real scent and warmth came from his mother beside him, who had always given him care and shelter and genuine attachment._

_On impulse, and instinct, and human spite, he raised his leg and marked Faunus copiously with urine. It felt like he had made a statement and it felt childishly good._

_“I wanna go home,” he growled softly._

___________________________

 

Arless tapped his finger on the table, gesturing to a tablet and handgun he had retrieved from one of the living intruders.

“A.I.M.” he called to Jack, who was squatting beside one of those two living. The man was bleeding from a gash on his head, caused by a glancing blow from Brock-wolf.

“You were here to pick up a specimen?” Jack asked him. There was a menacing growl from the wolf creature currently crouching behind Jack. The bleeding man nodded and Jack reached back casually to stroke the creature’s shoulder.

“Their van is outside, there’s a crate, and tranquilisers,” Jon informed them, returning from checking in the animal hospital’s grounds.

“Where is Woodhouse?” rumbled Brock-wolf.

“Looks like he has been working against Hydra as much as for them,” Jack stood up. “AIM aren't getting their specimen, Hydra won’t take kindly to him making arrangements with others behind their backs… He is gonna be getting as far away from everyone as he can,”

“The lab.” Brock-wolf stood up, nearly the same height as Jack in his wolf form. “The research - there might be clues,” Jack wavered for a moment, lost in pride at how professional and capable and pragmatic Brock was being. He was functioning as expected as the STRIKE team Commander, despite looking like a menacing, oversized Jack Russell terrier right now. He considered that perhaps that was just how he, Jack, saw him - the two surviving intruders were watching his every move in awed terror.

Jack was also mesmerized by the levelling out of eye contact in this form - it was kind of hot and he was getting a boner… he snapped out of it. There was work to be done.

“Woodhouse has put all this stuff about me into his enhancement program - the whole thing is now about making wolf soldiers,” Brock moved over to Arless and one of the survivors cringed as his furry tail brushed over his head and face in passing.

“He will have taken it, sent it elsewhere,” Arless spoke naturally to Brock as he put the collection of confiscated items in a bag. Jack was bursting with pride at how everyone was just doing their jobs, this was teamwork at its best.

“Dr- Dr Woodhouse has an office here,” one of the animal nurses spoke up. “I can show you,”. She looked nervous and a little tearful, after all this was not the kind of thing she was used to at all, without the talking werewolf.

Arless looked at his tablet. “It’s the Director… He wants us to apprehend Dr Woodhouse - he’s gone to the Washington facility, his lab. He still thinks the deal is going ahead,”

“Well he is going to be so disappointed,” Brock-wolf bared his teeth in a snarl that owed as much to his regular grin when he was up to something as lupine mandibular anatomy. Jack could only respond with his own best scarred-chin baracuda smile.

\--------------------------------------

 

Bamber Woodhouse took a small metal tin out of the top drawer of his desk. He was an old fashioned man in many ways, though at the forefront of science - in a fair world he should get a Nobel prize for the work contained in that tin - he always backed up everything he did on memory sticks.

Just his own, cheap memory sticks that were nothing to do with Hydra or SHIELD or scientific institutions. Nothing that could have been issued with a means of tracking them, or retrieving their contents. He kept them in tins and coffee jars and these had been in his top drawer for two years, along with two vials of the most priceless serum in history. Hidden among the wrappers of the candy the tin had originally contained was the greatest achievement in the history of genetic engineering.

Eccentric scientist’s sweet-toothed desk clutter - nothing to do with enhancement serum research that had morphed into lycanthropic dog soldier science. A breakthrough gleaned from the genes of a vain little Italian-American Hydra grunt who fancied himself a super soldier. It should have got him a Nobel prize, but it was the type of breakthrough destined for para-military organizations and crimelords.

But that was going to make him richer than any scientific institute funding ever could. Woodhouse placed the tin in his travel holdall. He was going on a little vacation…

\-------------------------

The STRIKE team took the AIM van back to Washington, in order to present it and its crate and tranquiliser cargo as evidence of Dr Woodhouse’s dog soldier betrayal. The two AIM survivors were being collected by SHIELD.

On the way, Jack and Brock stopped off at the research lab where this had all begun. They entered the lab side by side, both on two legs, Brock wearing the customized dog harness Jack had ordered for him in the pet store and his STRIKE jacket. They spoke briefly to a stunned looking security officer.

Their ID badges, one held up in a furry, clawed paw, satisfied the officer. The brief explanation as to what was going on placated him into agreeable action, placing the research lab area on a lockdown to all but the owners of these IDs at once.

In the corridor approaching the lab area, Jack abruptly stopped, putting a hand on Brock-wolf’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” asked Brock-wolf. A furry paw slid around Jack’s neck in a comforting embrace. “Everything okay on the mission? What’s up?”

Jack looked at him in wonderment. He was everything he should be as Jack’s commanding officer, best friend and - and life partner, in this moment. He was in wolf form, but doing what he should do as a man - what his dormant genetics had allowed for him to potentially be. It was a kind of miracle. It had been weird and worrying, but in fact this was Brock’s fullest potential fulfilled at last.

He was warm and much bigger like this. The defined muscular he had crafted onto his small frame through hard work all his adult life was just… awesome like this, showing through the glossy black fur. This was Brock’s heritage and just because that asshole Woodhouse had behaved the way he had, just because this was all an unexpected outcome to an endeavor Jack would have preferred Brock stay a million miles away from… everything was falling into place now.

Brock was amazing like this.

The second after Jack has slid his hands along either side of the big chest and lodged his fingers in the dog harness - much as he had under Brock’s ‘tactical cross harness’ over the years - he realised he, not Brock, was the one left with serious problems from this situation.

Jack found it… hot. Brock was hot like this. Perhaps Brock was just someone Jack would happen to find hot in any situation or permutation, but Jack was disconcerted at himself. He found the wolf hot _( it's just nature it’s just everything it’s all just part of the grand natural herd and if it’s hot and alive and biological you can fuck it, don’t Panic - just go with the Panic)._

Jack felt disgusted. This was Brock, as events had transpired, as a genome from thousands of years ago had allowed, being everything he could possibly be to the fullest. This was not about Jack and his weird feelings and inappropriate thoughts about a creature of myth.

He stayed very still. He could not allow his lower body to touch Brock, because he would surely feel the shameful boner.

“This, this is where we could do something else,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You know, like how we always talked about going away somewhere. Getting away from all of it and all of them? ‘Let’s go away somewhere and never come back’ you said, remember? If you wanted, we could go with Woodhouse now,”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere with that bastard!” Brock put both paws up on either side of Jack’s head, like he was checking for concussion. “Did you hit your head on that mission of yours? Did those guys at the hospital get you-”

“No - I'm serious Brock. We could go with Woodhouse now - then take the stuff off him. Everyone who ever thought of trying to find us would assume we had used his research and we’d have dog soldiers somewhere - all the time, we could just be away, anywhere, in the woods, by the beach, on an island. And you could be like this - you were literally born to be this - we -”

“No. Not now. I don’t want anyone using his research. I want that bastard to answer for what he’s done - and you’re not thinking straight, Jack. We’re staying in this until Insight, aren’t we, there’s no need for that to change.”

“Are you sure?”

Brock stepped further back from Jack and sat down, in dog sit fashion. “I want to see that bastard’s face when he realises it’s all over for him. This bullshit was not what I signed up for - and not what my ancestors would’ve stood for. There are gonna be no dog soldiers, Jack, except for this one here. And I only answer to one man,” he gave Jack a particularly puppyish look that half made Jack want to shake him and make him take this legacy for his own, strike out as his own unique (wolf)man - without Woodhouse or Hydra or even Jack - but it was hot…

“Okay, let’s do it. The way we said, attack dog, restrain him only at my command.” Jack reached down and slipped his hand under Brock-wolf’s collar.

\-----------------------------------------

Jack knocked on the office door, two raps, sharply.

“Er… come in,” called Bamber Woodhouse.

Brock-wolf snorted, Jack tightened his grip on the collar, giving it a little tug. “Like we said,” he murmured, raising one eyebrow in an expression Brock acknowledged with a slight flattening of his ears and a tiny tilt of his head.

Jack opened the door, inwards, and stepped just inside the room.Woodhouse froze, standing in the center of the office, clearly about to come to the door. He took in the sight of Jack and then his gaze lowered to the large, black furred wolf creature standing next to him on all fours.

Somehow he looked larger in this office, than he had as a shuddering distemper victim in a Hulk-sized cage. Woodhouse looked at the green eyes of Jack Rollins, inadvertently disconcerting in their mismatched nature, but better than the promise of hell in the the honey eyes of the wolf.

He dropped his holdall… and things went to hell briefly.

Woodhouse darted back behind his desk, scrabbling for something in his drawer; the movement caused Brock-wolf to tear himself away from Jack, charging at the doctor, who backed up hard against his own filing cabinet. Jack winced at the sound of Woodhouse’s skull impacting on the metal and the man’s yelp.

There was another flash of movement; Woodhouse had retrieved a handgun from his desk, but that was batted out of his hand by a furry black paw. There was another loud yelp from Woodhouse as claws skimmed over his hand and wrist in this act of disarming.

“Hey, hey, easy,” called Jack. “...Pookie,”

Brock-wolf stood up, coming into Woodhouse’s personal space - in particular the long lupine jaws right on a level with his face.

Woodhouse visibly cringed away.

“Okay… it’s okay, Brock. The gun’s gone, back off now, stand down, “ murmured Jack.

Brock snarled, thin lips peeling back from long, sharp, ( _Hollywood smile)_ teeth. Something warred within the Brock-wolf, there was a trembling self restraint about him for a moment, and then he moved back, slowly, a couple of two-legged paces, with the stealthy grace of his present form and his human training..

Woodhouse blinked nervously.

With a sharp growl, Brock-wolf raised his lethal paw.

“No! We need him alive!” cried Jack.

Brock dashed the cluster of potted succulents and spider-plants off the top of the filing cabinet, the force of his blow diminishing in power as he did so. It would have surely taken off Woodhouse’s head, or at least left it hanging on his neck, had the blow connected. Woodhouse screamed and cowered, as if it had.

As it was, by the time the man had uncovered his eyes, Brock was slinking wolflike to Jack’s side, accepting a little cuff to the side of his head with a mischievous yip and licking Jack’s hand. The plants lay on the floor in the remains of their earth bedding, pots shattered, meticulous management of nature in ruins.

“Oh dear, look at that,” remarked Jack, pleasantly, through a smile that promised distinct unpleasantness. “Well… I was gonna say, are you going somewhere, Dr Woodhouse? Cause I think we need to talk first,”

Woodhouse unwrapped his arms from his head and looked at Jack stupidly.

“What about?” he muttered. He looked at Brock-wolf, now crouching like a baleful watchdog next to Jack’s thigh.

“Sit down, shall we?” suggested Jack. He tugged Brock’s collar. “Sit on the chair, like before, huh?” he similarly prompted his wolf companion. Brock-wolf lumbered gracefully to a chair still placed in front of the doctor’s desk, as usual, for his consultations.

Woodhouse slumped into his own chair on the other side of the desk, cradling his wrist, which was bleeding superficially from the scratches.

Jack closed the office door gently, as if to give them some privacy. The sense of calm was wonderful for a second. Returned calm after the Pookie-storm and the doctor’s scrambling terror and all because Jack had regained control.

He still had that boner,

Jack stood next to Brock, stroking the fur at the back of the creature’s neck.

“You have admirable control over him,” said Woodhouse, in a suddenly casual voice. His hand was under the desk, pressing a panic alarm, of course. No matter, it was disabled.

“Well, yeah,” agreed Jack, amiably. “Which is why I was a little put out to hear you were sending him god knows where without me. You’d think, after entrusting me with being his… handler, you’d let me in on the deal.”

Woodhouse looked wary. “With the dog soldier program? Well of course-”

“No, the deal with AIM - and anyone else you might have had lined up. Look, people on my team found out that you were sending him to some place in South America - and that SHIELD found out,”

Woodhouse looked startled again.

“In fact they are probably on their way now, SHIELD - Hydra, SHIELD, same thing. I got him out of the animal hospital as soon as I found out - I just thought we could all go now, together, get out of this whole mess.” Jack looked a little careworn.

“He could have killed me,”

“Yeah, sorry about that, separation anxiety, you know, we work as a team,” shrugged Jack. “It’s what you wanted,”

“Right…of course,”

“So, you tell me where you are going and we’ll go with you.”

Woodhouse looked at a spot on the wall to the left of Jack - waiting for the sounds of approaching security that were not coming, no doubt. “We’re going to Paraguay,” he replied. Jack couldn’t resist a smirk at the supposedly subtle movement of his uninjured arm under the desk, going for the inactive panic alarm…

There was a rumbling, warning growl from Brock.

The static tearing of tape and the unprofessionally increased urgency in Woodhouse’s movements told Jack there was another handgun taped under the desk, just like in an old movie.

“Restrain him,” said Jack, softly,

Another blur of black fur, an admirable equal effort at lighting speed from the doctor, terror giving him reflexes he would never normally need and Woodhouse was darting from the desk. Brock thudded hard enough into Jack’s shoulder to leave a bruise as he changed his own course to follow Woodhouse’s panicked but certain path to the door.

Scrabbling claws, a lunge, a high pitched scream and a tackle that ended with Woodhouse on the floor, brought down by the descendent of the Luceres, arms flailing, the creature’s jaws clamped on his left asscheek.

Jack rallied as usual, he could take restraint from here. “Off, Pookie!”

Brock-wolf let go of the man’s ass - and raked his claws down the side of his head. There was another scream and Woodhouse fainted.

“Enough Brock!” Jack wrapped his arms around Brock-wolf’s shoulders, pulling insistently. “Come on, he said enough to incriminate himself, he wasn’t gonna include me, nothing was like he told Pierce it would be. You kill him and he’s getting off easy. Let the black bags have him, hmmm?”

Brock-wolf shuffled off the doctor and rested his snout on JAck's shoulder, growling softly and nuzzling him.

“Whatever happens now, he’s finished,” sighed Jack. “You’re free,”

Free. Not strictly something either of them were, or ever had been since they joined Hydra, but it was back to baseline at least.

\--------------------------------

At the rear of the lab facility was a garden used by staff and visitors for lunch, recreation.

Brock-wolf waited out there, while Jack alerted the security officer that Woodhouse was restrained and ready for pick up. It was a late summer evening, with a clear sky, and a bright waxing mezza luna hung over the trees.

He could hear the not-too-distant sounds of the city, closer passing traffic and the hoot of an owl. This was pretty much the combination of human civilization, development and raw animal nature he had within himself now.

He was an experienced, trained combatant field operative with the ability to turn into a powerful lupine/human hybrid. Sitting with his back to a brick garden wall in a decidedly human posture, staring up at the crescent moon with the specialized head of a predatory animal he pondered on what Jack had called being ‘free’.

Woodhouse or no Woodhouse, Hydra were still behind what had happened to him. One day he might well be called upon to be a ‘wolf soldier’ or ‘attack dog’. At least he would be used in a thoughtful manner; he knew he was valued as a regular agent - and that was the capacity he would be of the most use in, when Insight commenced.

But right now he was free to choose how to spend the next few days.

He scented Jack as he emerged from the building, and it took his attention away from the moon and the night sounds. The familiar, tall figure moved onto a small patio at the garden entrance. There was a metallic clicking sound, the whoosh of a little flame, an inhalation and a tiny red glow.

The scent of cigarette smoke flooded Brock-wolf’s senses in the next second. It was something as familiar as Jack, addictive, reassuring - with the taint of danger. It brought images of cypress firs and mountains and the bleating of forbidden supper asking to be chased.

... _Tawny curls_ …

There was low whistle that demanded attention from every part of him. “Hey… Pookie? Brock…”

Jack was calling him. The choice was clear, for now and the wolf form made some choices very easy.

Brock-wolf pushed away from the wall and trotted on all fours over to Jack, who crouched down to greet him. Brock snorted and pushed his snout lovingly into Jack’s crotch, enjoying the resulting chuckle and ear scratches.

“You okay? You - you staying like this? What’re we doing now?” Jack was asking, accommodating, clearly willing to go with whatever suited Brock right now. He was thoughtful like that.

“I wanna go home,” growled Brock.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He guessed Brock was coming down from the whole experience, the distemper, Woodhouse's betrayal, the potential of being taken god-knows-where to be an experimental supplier of wolf-man genes and template for an army of ‘dog soldiers’.
> 
>  
> 
> It was okay if Brock was staying in this form for now. He said he found life simpler this way.

Jack drove back to his house with Brock, who was curled in wolf form in the back seat. He seemed to want to stay like that for now. Street lighting and the light from other traffic illuminated the dark shadow in the back seat as Jack glanced in the rear-view mirror, checking every half minute in between responsible driving.

By the time he reached the suburb where his house was, the shadow was snoring.

Jack parked in his garage, a delicate manoeuvre, as there was a pick up on the drive and the garage contained two roadworthy motorcycles and a scattering of wheels and parts for the custom bike he was creating at the moment. He got the back door open before he returned to the car, and got Brock-wolf out in stages, trying not to wake him.

It was not as easy as bundling Brock the man out, but he managed, and carried the creature of myth into the house, going as far as draping him over the _Pets and Pals_  dog nest in the living room.

Jack went upstairs and showered, cleansing the stress and strain away, shutting off the memory of dog soldier experiments, Woodhouse, and rescuing a werewolf. His life had been punctuated with life threatening situations and horror for as long as he remembered, easily showered away and shelved for downtime. A slight sense of unease tugged today, would not simply wash away down a drain - Brock had been part of his downtime for years, and Brock was changed now.

Jack took a small metal tin out of his discarded uniform pants and considered. He should hand it in, he should have handed it in earlier. It contained two vials of the serum Woodhouse had derived from Brock-wolf.

He decided to keep it for now. It seemed that perhaps it might be important some day.

Brock-wolf snorted and awoke in the dog nest. He went straight to the downstairs shower room. Jack went to help, hoping that Brock would return to human form with the clear temptation of Jack handling him under running water.

Instead he dog-sat when he saw Jack and nosed the shower pipe, clearly wanting Jack to help him shower as a wolf, black fur and all.

His fur was matted. Jack chose the mild dog shampoo he had bought a few days ago, before they went to the STRIKE camp, being practical on impulse. He sprayed water from the shower attachment over the large furry head and body and began working the dog shampoo in, kneading with his long, strong fingers, separating knots and dislodging the grime and dried secretions of caging and distemper.

It was disgusting, but he and Brock had often washed blood and guts and gore from each other, and at least this was Brock-wolf’s own mess.

Brock-wolf half-closed his eyes and cooperated with Jack’s instructions to life this paw, that paw, raise his butt and tail, twist around. He seemed to lose agency, enjoying the whole process of being treated like a pet.

Jack found he didn’t mind, certainly not cleaning the creature and not even the fact he was cleaning a pet rather than a man. It was cute, somehow.

He guessed Brock was coming down from the whole experience, the distemper, Woodhouse's betrayal, the potential of being taken god-knows-where to be an experimental supplier of wolf-man genes and template for an army of ‘dog soldiers’.

It was okay if Brock was staying in this form for now. He said he found life simpler this way.

Jack rinsed him off with the shower attachment, being careful not to get anything in his eyes; he found himself being far more considerate with Brock in this form, no snapping him out of the shock of a bad situation, just acting like he had rescued a pet.

It was fine, just for tonight. It was fine that Brock scurried back to his Pets and Pals dog nest afterwards, and lay down with his nose on his paws to doze, while Jack cooked himself a steak and blistered another for a few seconds for Brock. A veneer of cooked meat over raw flesh, with blood and juices flowing when he would take a bite. Just the way he liked it these days.

Just for tonight, Jack was fine with his rescued pet.

 

‘ _The farmer’s daughter ran out of the house, a bundle of belongings gathered up in a blanket. She paused outside, looking at the orange glow from the village center. She felt sick, realising what her father and the elders had done. She was inadvertently part of an atrocity and however much she told herself she had been kept in the dark and used as bait in a wolf-trap, she felt guilty._  
_The screams had subsided, there was the sound of bleating and wolves snarling on the wind. It would appear the Luceres had come, but not to be slaughtered, it seemed the slaughter had been of the villagers._

_She knew she must get away from here. The lure of the forest, where Rumexia and Badger lived, was strong, but she knew she would not be welcome there. That made her feel sick too._

_Walking to the left, down a small path that lead away from her home and off towards the west and unclaimed countryside, she found her way blocked. SHe heard the snarling, her spine tingling, before she saw the cream-colored wolf…_

_“I didn’t know,” blurted out the farmer’s daughter. It was the truth, and the only thing that needed to be said, whether it mattered or not to the wolf. It mattered to the farmer’s daughter that she had not known about the lethal trick played on Badger, and she wanted this wolf to know it. Whether the etiquette of revenge demanded that she be torn to pieces right now or whether the wolf would care or not, in her anger for her brother, the farmer's daughter prepared to die, to pay the price for the harm done tonight. <_

_There was another deep, snarling sound from the bushes next to them. A second, larger wolf approached, paler than the first; the harvest moon had climbed high in the sky and glowed silver and gold on her fur._

_“I’m so sorry,” said the farmer’s daughter, dully. She dropped her bundle and hung her head._

_The smaller, cream wolf padded between the farmer’s daughter and the larger pale wolf - Larentia Lupa, the leader of the Luceres, Badger’s mother._

_“Please, mother, don’t you see? She was nothing to do with it. There was meant to be a union tonight…” said the cream wolf, Sorrel Rumexia. “She just thought she was marrying Badger,”_

_Larentia put her great furry head on one side and considered. She saw what would come to pass if she spared the farmer’s daughter who had been about to marry her son. The farmer's daughter would marry a stone dweller known as the Baker. Their descendants would bear the name Panichelli. She saw a Panichelli in the future, keeping the story of the Luceres tribe alive in writing. She saw an even more distant descendent of his, a Panichelli sitting in the sun admiring the view. She saw that the view was that of another man, descended from her own daughter, the wolf-woman Sorrel._

_They both looked like sons of the Aritim valley and they both, somehow, therefore, had a look of Badger. An act of mating between them would bring the descendent of Sorrel closer together with yet another man, who looked like Tawny... It would happen here, in this valley, in the distant future._

_“I see,” said Larentia, studying the way her daughter’s tail was involuntarily waving, slowly, in a wag and her ears pricked at every tone of the farmer’s daughter’s voice. “I should have known.”_

\-------------------------

 

Jack tried relaxing the next day, downtime and a documentary about Hell’s Angels on TV.  
He clicked his fingers and whistled for Brock to hop on the sofa with him, Brock was agitated and tense, reacting to sounds in the street, someone mowing the grass, kids playing.

The mailman came, ringing. Brock broke into the loudest barking ever, husky-like, barks merging into semi-howls, deep growls.

Jack had forgotten the delivery of a set of books until now, and now that they had returned after everything that had happened, in time for his parcel, he was not having the mailman driven away in terror.

“Quiet!” he ordered, getting up and going to the door, He shut the living room door behind him and opened the front door to a nervous looking mailman.

“Hi,” said Jack, pleasantly.

“Delivery for Mr.Rollins….” the mailman sounded as nervous as he looked.

 _BOOFBOOOFAROOOOOWWW_!!!

Jack swore under his breath “Just the dog,” he added and reached for the parcel.

The living room door opened - of course Brock can open doors - and a creature of myth hurtled into the hallway.

Jack and the presence of mind to grab the scruff of his dog's neck “Quiet, Pookie!”

He closed the door swiftly, the mailman already halfway down the path and on his hasty way.

Jack sighed. “Let’s eat. Then we’re going on a long walk,” he decided.

 

It was a warm afternoon. Jack drove to a spot where he could park the car and let Brock-wolf come barreling out of the back of the car and into the woods. Letting off steam seemed like the best thing for him today.

Jack followed to the same place by a stream where they had come last week. He was sure Brock would find him there again - he knew the place and he could scent Jack for miles now. He was relaxed enough to doze a little, with the sound of the water and insects buzzing.

The water seemed to get louder and louder in his dream...

_They plunged into the water, together, into a roaring spray, it was not cold, nor as wet as it should be. It was like sliding down and when they landed in the water beneath, it yielded, it did not break Badger, they were together, in slow motion, circling in the current where the spray hit the water again and again, like a whirlpool._

_There, for a brief moment, a lifetime passed, and Tawny and Badger saw a huge stone dwelling burn and fall into another river, fire and howling like the sacrificial rite of the Ramenses._

_They saw Tawny, tall, with a scarred, lived-in face, and Badger, marked by the fire, but whole and healing. They saw Tawny take Badger’s blood, from a small vial and take it into himself. He wanted to be like Badger, so they could be together forever._

_They saw Tawny gather the goats and take Badger from a floating metal island._

_They saw them in the woods, buried in the woods, together, forever, Tawny and Badger, Rollo and Ianthinarus, Jack and Brock…_

**AUGUST 2014**

 

**_....Emergency staff at the Triskelion disaster site reported hearing whimpering and scuffles in the rubble, but there were no dogs found..._ **

****

**_...Last month, parents of a local boy wrote to the ******** Hospital, congratulating them on their Burns Unit therapy dog._ **

****

**_Apparently the boy had reported that a ‘big, fluffy dog’ had come to his bedside, where he was recovering after a house fire. The dog came several times at night, and curled up at the end of his bed._ **

****

**_The dog also spent a number of afternoons in the therapy room._ **

****

**_A member of the night staff reported hearing whimpering from a side room in the unit, a few months earlier.”_ **

****

**_“I thought someone had smuggled a dog in there - which was weird because the patient in that room had no visitors. But no, there was nothing there, I mean no dogs.”_ **

****

**_A member of the Hospital board stated “There are no therapy dogs, but given the response here it is certainly something to consider for the future,”_ **

****

\-----------------------------

 

Jack was watching Animal Planet, a documentary called ‘The Last Wolfman’. It was clearly a fake, with a small disclaimer at the start, but played like a real wildlife investigation program. Fake scientists reported finding evidence for werewolves, which was covered up by the government at every turn.

The program was interspersed with CGI films of how werewolves could have evolved, had they been real. Mention was made of the Luceres tribe myths of ancient Etruria, and of course the famous wolf-adoption story of Romulus and Remus.

“Come see this,” Jack called, to Brock, who was making pancakes in their cabin,

Brock wandered over, covered in flour, with maple syrup round his mouth and in his hair.

Just as he did, the documentary showed a piece of amateur film, supposedly taken from someone’s phone. There was a blurry, upright, slightly hominid, slightly wolf-like - slightly something anthropomorphic and wolf/bear like - running away from the back of a building and into some woodland.

It was clearly filmed outside the bar in the outskirts of Washington DC - the one Jack used to use.

“That’s.... That’s… That was -” murmured Brock.

“It was,” agreed Jack.

The documentary continued, claiming a cover up of the existence of werewolves and a secret experiment conducted by shady government agencies to develop wolf-soldiers. Watching it, it came across as technically plausible, conspiracy theory type stuff using a well-known mythological creature as the subject.

No different from ones about mermaids and dragons that had been on before. Entertaining and interesting, but no way real.

Brock flopped down next to Jack on the sofa and took a sip from Jack’s beer.

“People believe this stuff,” he remarked. “Over the next few days the internet will be full of idiots thinking this stuff is true,”

“Idiots,” Jack nodded. “Some people will believe anything,”

Brock chuckled and went back to get the pancakes ready for the next documentary ‘ _Satyrs in Myth and Mind_ ’.


End file.
